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PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
STUDY NO. 42 



A Generation of 

Progress in Our Public 

Schools 



1881-1912 



\3\ 1910 /g 

\*X. ...•■■A/ 



PHILADELPHIA 
1015 WITHERSPOON BUILDING 

Price 25 Cent* 1914 



Gin 



JOAUt. 18 



Public Education Association 
Study No. 42 



A GENERATION OF PROGRESS 
IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

1881-1912 



AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION OF PHILADELPHIA SINCE ITS ORIGIN 
AS A VOLUNTEER ORGANIZATION OF CITIZENS INTER- 
ESTED IN THE WELFARE OF OUR 
PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



'THE ENTIRE EDUCATIONAL WORLD IS IN CONSTANT FLUX. 
THE THING WE CALL EDUCATION TODAY IS A VASTLY DIFFER- 
ENT THING FROM THE CONCEPT OF A GENERATION AGO' 
SUPERINTENDENT M. G. BRUMBAUGH 



PHILADELPHIA 

1015 WITHERSPOON BUILDING 

1914 



^^^I*^ 



-5? 









N^ 



CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Foreword 3 

Date Schedule 5 

Introduction 12 

Reorganization of School System 18 

Cooperation Through Committees 30 

Compulsory Education 31 

Scholarships 33 

Medical Inspection 35 

Backward Children 37 

Industrial Training 39 

Household Economy 44 

Art 45 

Kindergartens 46 

Playgrounds 47 

School Gardens and Vacation Schools 48 

The School the Community Center 49 

School Lunches 50 

High Schools 51 

Survey of Other Volunteer Organizations 54 

Incorporation 55 

Financial Statement 56 

Growth of the Schools, 1881-191 1 57 

APPENDIX 

President Eliot on the Administration of City Schools 59 

Summary of Code 60 

Officers of the Public Education Association 63 

Public Meetings 64 

Publications .". 66 

Index '-,'.'■ 68 



FOREWORD 

This study is put forth neither as a complete history of the 
PubHc Education Association nor as a chronicle of all the developments 
of the public schools of Philadelphia. If, however, it does give 
some side-lights on the progress of public education in this city, 
and if through setting forth the results gained by co-operative 
effort of public-spirited citizens, it shall encourage others to a 
like service, it will have fulfilled its purpose. 

For the investigation of the material from which the facts 
here stated were obtained, the Association is indebted to Miss 
Elizabeth Haupt Smith. In order to secure as great accuracy as 
possible in the facts narrated, she has given much time and un- 
tiring effort in research in the records of the Association, the reports 
of the Board of Education and other sources; and has placed on 
file in the office of the Association a detailed record of the authori- 
ties consulted. 

For intimate notes on the early history of the Association we 
are indebted to its first President, Mr. James Whitney; its first 
Secretary, Miss Charlotte Pendleton; to Mr. W. W. Justice, and 
others. Former Secretaries, Miss Dora Keen and Mr. George 
Roth, have also given valuable assistance in regard to the periods 
of their service. A large part of the history of the Code of 191 1 
is by the pen of Mr. Roth. 

To these and to all those who through their helpful interest 
have made this study possible, we extend our sincere appreciation. 

JAMES S. HIATT, 

Secretary. 
March 19, 1914 



With the co-operation of all the educational forces of 
the State and Nation, we may be sure that the day will 
eventually dawn when the ideal condition shall come, 
when each child shall be broadly educated to the extent 
of his powers and at the same time educated for his voca- 
tion, without reference to condition or birth. 

(President Charles R. Van Hise) 



A GENERATION OF PROGRESS IN OUR 
PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

1881-1912 

"The issue depends upon educational campaigns in behalf of educa- 
tion ITSELF." — Abraham Flexner 



The gains scheduled in the following table are not given as the 
result of the activities of this society alone but rather as evidence 
of the constructive achievements of an awakened community 
operating through this and various other philanthropic and civic 
organizations, constantly seeking the welfare of the youth of our city. 

Some of the more important developments that have taken 
place in these years are given in chronological order, as an effective 
illustration of co-operation. 



Main Interests of the Public 

Education Association 

1881-1912 

1 88 1 Universal education. 
Schools of trades and indus- 
try. 

Organization of schools under 
a City Superintendent. 

Compilation of school laws. 

Kindergartens. 

School hygiene. 

Salaries and qualifications of 
teachers. 

1882 Centralization of executive 

power. 

Revised course of study. 

Co-operation with Sub-Pri- 
mary School Society in es- 
tablishment of Kindergar- 
tens. 

Manual training for boys. 

Revision of school laws. 

1883 Revised course of study. 
Co-operation with Sub-Pri- 
mary School Society. 

Manual Training. 

1884 Unification of school system. 
Co-operation with Society for 

Organizing Charity in dis- 
cussion of the revision of 
school laws. 

Course of lectures bearing on 
education. 

Consideration of school archi- 
tecture and school hygiene. 



Important Gains in the Public 

Schools of Philadelphia 

1881-1912 

Sewing introduced into Normal 
School. 

Sub-Primary School Society incor- 
porated. 



Department of Superintendence es- 
tablished, April 1 1. 



First Superintendent, Dr. James 
MacAlister, appointed March 12. 

First appropriation, $5,000, to the 
Sub-Primary School Society for 
Kindergartens. 

Course of study revised. 

$7,500 appropriated by Councils for 

first manual training school for 

boys. 



Main Interests of the Public 
Education Association 

1885 Revision of school laws. 
Universal education. 
Public meetings on primary 

education and household 

economy. 
Handwork in schools. 



Important Gains in the Public 
Schools of Philadelphia 

Reorganization of school system un- 
der supervising principals. 

Central Manual Training School 
opened, September. 

Sewing for girls introduced into 
Grammar Schools. 



1886 



1887 



1888 



Revision of school laws. 
Industrial training. 



A school census. 

Opposition to substitution of 
city bureau head for School 
Board. 

Revision of school laws. 

Contribution of J^oo for es- 
tablishment of cooking 
classes in Girls' Normal 
School. 

Compilation of school laws. 

Hygiene in schools. 

Adequate pay and better 
qualifications of teachers. 

Betterment and enlargement 
of school buildings. 

Contribution of $2,216.56 to 
Industrial Exhibit. 

Contribution of |8oo for cook- 
ing classes in Grammar 
Schools. 



Kindergartens assumed by Board of 
Education $15,000 appropriated 
by Councils for their mainte- 
nance. 

Exhibit in New York of sewing in 
Philadelphia schools. 

First woman member of Board of 
Education. 

Cooking introduced into Girls' Nor- 
mal School. 



Industrial Training Exhibit of Public 
Schools in Horticultural Hall, 
financed by Public Education As- 
sociation, May. 

Cooking introduced into Grammar 
Schools. 



1889 Project for a high school of 

applied science and manual 
training for girls. 

1890 Manual training for both 

bo>s and girls. 

1 89 1 Secretary of Association re- 

quested by Board of Edu- 
cation to prepare Act of 
Assembly for reorganiza- 
tion of school system. 
Contribution of $250 to found 
Chair of Pedagogy in Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. 



Cooking classes in Normal School as- 
sumed by Board of Education. 



Northeast Manual Training School 
opened, September. 

Department of Pedagogy instituted 

in Central High School. 
Manual Training introduced into 

James Forten Elementary School. 



6 



Main Interests of the Public 
Education Association 



Important Gains in the Public 
Schools of Philadelphia 



1892 



1893 



1894 



1895 



1897 



1898 



School Census, in order to find 
out what children were out 
of school and why. 

Legislation for the reconstruc- 
tion of the school system. 

Meetings for "unification of 
system." 

Appropriation of ^250 for 
school census. 

Reorganization of school sys- 
tem. 

Contribution of $200 to sum- 
mer course for teachers at 
University of Pennsylvania. 

Contribution of $100 for deco- 
ration of rooms in Girls' 
Normal School. 

Compulsory Education. 

Bill urged for reorganization 
of school system. 



Compulsory Education. 

Reorganization of sectional 
school boards. 

Contribution of $200 to Civic 
Club towards expenses of 
School Bill at Harrisburg. 

Beginning of efforts for med- 
ical inspection. 

Decoration of memorial room 
in Alice Lippincott School, 
contribution $300. 



Medical inspection. 
Reorganization of sectional 

boards and enlarged powers 

for Central Board. 
Investigation of Compulsory 

Education in Europe and 

America; report published. 



Board of Education received appro- 
priation of $15,000 for establish- 
ment of free libraries in schools. 

Director of Drawing appointed. 

Separation of Girls' High and Nor- 
mal Schools effected. 

Commercial course in Girls' High 
School initiated. 

Chair of Pedagogy established in 
University of Pennsylvania, with 
aid of Public Education Associa- 
tion. 



Compulsory Education Law, includ- 
ing a census requirement, passed 
May 16. 

Reorganization of High School facul- 
ties into departments. 

Kindergarten course established in 
Girls' Normal School. 

Four playgrounds opened. Civic 
Club especially influential. 

First class graduated from Commer- 
cial High School for Girls. 



New Compulsory Education Law, 
July 12. 

Department of Compulsory Educa- 
tion organized. 

Director of Music appointed. 

Promotions in Elementary Schools 
made annually instead of semi- 
annually. 

Medical inspection begun by volun- 
teer physicians, June 16. 

School of Commerce in Central High 
School established. 

Vacation Schools opened by Civic 
Club. 

Free lectures in Northeast Manual 
Training School. 

First Special School for truant and 
incorrigible established. 



Main Interests of the Public 
Education Association 

1899 Progressive school legislation; 
study of school finances; re- 
sults published in Annals of 
American Academy of Polit- 
ical and Social Science. 

Recommending candidates for 
School Board. 

Establishment of Class for 
Backward Children; main- 
tained by Public Education 
Association and Civic Club 
at cost of $1,852. 

First efforts for sectional high 
schools. 

Lectures in high schools; con- 
tribution of $<jo. 

Supervisors of drawing. 

Compulsory Education; par- 
ental schools. 

Plans for school libraries. 

Conference with New York 
Public Education Associa- 
tion. 



Important Gains in the Public 
Schools of Philadelphia 

First Class for Backward Children 
established jointly by Public Ed- 
ucation Association and Civic 
Club. 



1900 Reorganization of school sys- 
tem. 

Sectional high schools. 

Vacation schools. 

Compulsory Education. 

Daily medical inspection, tests 
for sight and hearing, vacci- 
nation; opposition to com- 
mon drinking cups, and to 
over-crowding. 

Conference with Eastern Pub- 
lic Education Associations. 

Class for Backward Children 
maintained in co-operation 
with Civic Club at expense 
of $1,400. 



Exhibit describing Class for Back- 
ward Children at Paris Exposition. 

Daily medical inspection begun but 
without appropriation enough to 
continue. 

Three assistants to Director of Draw- 
ing appointed. 



190 1 Smaller Central Board and re- 
duced powers for sectional 
boards. 

Increased appropriations for 
Compulsory Education. 

Physical training. 

Daily medical inspection. 

Conferences with other edu- 
cation associations; two del- 
egates to Congress on Prim- 
ary Education in Paris. 



Class for Backward Children taken 

over by City System as part of 

Special School No. 3. 
New Law on Compulsory Education, 

July II. 
Act of Assembly requiring course in 

physical culture. 



8 



Main Interests of the Public 
Education Association 

1902 District High Schools. 
Daily medical inspection. 
School libraries, contributions 

of papers and books. 

1903 Investigation of organization 

of school systems of America. 
District High Schools. 
Vacation Schools. 
Compulsory Education and 

parental schools. 
Daily medical inspection, 

sight and hearing tests. 
First efforts for visiting nurses. 
First efforts for enlargement of 

school playgrounds. 

1904 Reorganization of school sys- 

tem. 

Conferences with other asso- 
ciations. 

District High Schools. 

Teachers' salaries. 

School Gardens. 

Medical inspection, school 
nurses; contribution of pa- 
per from Association's Com- 
mittee at First International 
Conference of School Hy- 
giene in Germany. 

Representation on Child La- 
bor Committee. 

1905 Improved school administra- 

tion; reorganization of sec- 
tional boards; smaller Cen- 
tral Board. 

State Inspector of High 
Schools. 

District High Schools. 

School Gardens. 

Medical inspection; school 
nurses. 

Day nurseries. 

Beginningof Compulsory Edu- 
cation scholarships, to avoid 
possible hardships from 
Child Labor Law; amount 
contributed, $1 ,673.85. 

Parental schools. 

Conferences with other as- 
sociations. 

Visitors to special schools, 
volunteering from Public 
Education Association. 



Important Gains in the Public 
Schools of Philadelphia 

Physical training introduced in ele- 
mentary schools under grade teach- 



ers. 



from 



First volunteer school nurse, 

Visiting Nurse Society. 
Appropriation of $60,000 for medical 

inspectors. 



Daily medical inspection begun by 
the City. 

Appropriation of ^3,500 made by City 
Councils to conduct two model gar- 
dens. 

School Gardens opened, May. 

School principals memorialized the 
citizens of Philadelphia, praying 
for appointment of Commission 
that would suggest legislation to 
give Philadelphia a modern system 
of school control. 



Commission appointed by Board of 
Education to suggest revision of 
school laws of Pennsylvania gov- 
erning First School District. 

New School Law passed, April 22. 

Child Labor Law passed, May 2. 



Main Interests of the Public 
Education Association 

1906 Less executive work and com- 

mittee rule and more ade- 
quate organization of exec- 
utive departments of school 
system. 

District High Schools. 

Special kindergartens. 

Industrial training; school 
gardens; domestic science. 

Maintenance of Compulsory 
Education Scholarships, 
contribution $2,102.50. 

Day Nurseries. 

Reception to new Superinten- 
dent. 

Improvement of medical in- 
spection. 

Development of Agnew Social 
Center. 

1907 Maintenance of Compulsory 

Education Scholarships, 
contribution $1,554. 

District High Schools. 

Further care of backward 
children. 

Course of industrial training 
in elementary schools, con- 
tributed $447.85. 

Placing of state appropriation 
to credit of schools. 

School Loan of $5,000,000. 

State Commission for codifica- 
tion of school laws. 

1908 Study of legislation and finan- 

cial situation; school loan of 
$5,000,000. 

Recommendation of women 
for sectional school boards. 

Manual training. 

Additional schools for back- 
ward children. 

School Gardens. 

Maintenance of Compulsory 
Education Scholarships, 
contribution $21.48. 

1909 Academy Mass Meeting for 

"loan of $4,000,000." 
Conference on Retardation. 
Study of financial situation. 
Study of proposed New Code. 
Compulsory Education. 
District High Schools. 



Important Gains in the Public 
Schools of Philadelphia 

Board of Education reorganized un- 
der new Law, with 21 members. 

Reorganization of sectional boards, 
women appointed on them. 

Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh elected 
Superintendent of Schools, July. 

Committee of Board of Education 
appointed to consider District 
High Schools. 

Trades School opened, October. 

Exhibit of industrial conditions in 
Horticultural Hall, December. 

Volunteer colored nurse for colored 
schools. 

Reorganization of evening elemen- 
tary schools. 



Southern Manual Training High 
School opened September. 

Department of Physical Education 
organized and Director appointed. 

Commission appointed to collate, re- 
vise and amend school laws of 
Pennsylvania (known as Code 
Commission). 

School lunch work reorganized. 

Agnew Social Center established. 

Home and School League organized. 



Paid school nurse service established 
(One head nurse and 5 assistants). 

School loan of $2,500,000 for sites 
and buildings authorized. 

Promotions in Elementary Schools 
again made semi-annually. 



William Penn High School opened, 
September. 

Manual training introduced in va- 
rious grammar schools, without 
expense to Board of Education. 

Public Playgrounds Commission ap- 
pointed by Mayor. 



10 



Main Interests of the Public 
Education Association 

1909 Manual training; investiga- 
tion of relation between 
schools and industry. 

1 9 1 o Study of proposed New Code ; 
publication of "Parallel 
Comparison" of old and 
new school laws. 

Formation of Educational Al- 
liance. 

District High Schools. 

Study of financial systems of 
schools; budget for five 
years prepared. 

Industrial training in elemen- 
tary schools. 

191 1 Study and interpretation of 

New Code. 
Study of financial situation; 

publication of "Review of 

School Expenditures." 
Recommendations for new 

Board. 
State Board of Education. 



19 1 2 Reorganization of school sys- 
tem under the New Code. 

Study of school revenues. 

Preparation of Directory of 
Children's Institutions. 

Study of parental schools. 

Scholarships for high school 
pupils. 

Vocational Guidance. 

School lunches. 

Medical inspection. 

Co-operation with Baby Sav- 
ing Show in preparation of 
pamphlet. 



Important Gains in the Public 
Schools of Philadelphia 

Report of Committee on Backward 
Children Investigation published 
by Board of Education. 

Six district high school annexes 
opened in West Philadelphia, 
Germantown, Kensington and 
Frankford. 

Loan of $1,750,000 authorized; $500,- 
000 assumed by Board of Educa- 
tion. 



Comprehensive school legislation for 
the Commonwealth of Pennsyl- 
vania: Act of Assembly May 18, 
known as the School Code. This 
Act provides for establishment of 
State Board of Education, gives 
financial control to Board of Edu- 
cation, reduces Board of Education 
in first class cities to 15 members. 

Board of Recreation appointed. 

Bureau of Compulsory Education re- 
organized. 

Constitutionality of School Code de- 
cided by Supreme Court, May 6. 
Rehearing denied. May 20. 

Adoption of amendments to By-Laws 
and Rules of Board of Education, 
increasing powers of Superinten- 
dent. 

Preparation of a unified system for 
the various executive departments 
of the Board. 

Reorganization of high school sys- 
tem. 

Appointment of Chief School Ex- 
aminer. 

Re-districting of 10 administrative 
school districts of Philadelphia. 

Temporary loan of J^ 1,500,000 au- 
thorized, April 9. 

Reorganization of Department of 
Medical Inspection, February. 

Manual training introduced in ten 
additional elementary schools. 



11 



INTRODUCTION 

"Education must always be largely a process of sowing rather than 
REAPING." — Walter Channing 

"Voluntary associations for specific social ends is the demo- 
cratic way of not leaving everything to the state. By the character 
and spirit and earnestness and number of these bodies, the actual 
level of democratic life may at any moment be known." 

"Democracy is self-educating as well as self-governing. In- 
deed, it is self-governing only because it is so largely self-educating, 
and a democratic society educates itself, as it governs itself, not 
only by electing legislatures and school boards but by spontaneous 
non-official organizations directed to specific ends." 

It is thus that Dr. Abraham Flexner in a recent incisive ad- 
dress has stated the unavoidable reason for existence of volunteer 
citizen organizations. 

In the older European countries, says he, education is static. 
In Germany one must not experiment with the schools. If edu- 
cation in that country must be changed, an expert or a commission 
of experts is required to work out a curriculum which without 
further testing is put to work. Protest and criticism, therefore, 
take place almost wholly within the system; the principle of 
progress is from within. There education keeps to the point and 
is guilty of no absurdities, but it lacks volume and breadth of 
view. 

By way of contrast: the initiative for educational progress in 
the United States is largely outside of the system. " Democracy 
marks itself off from aristocracy, not only in governing itself 
through agents of its own choosing; it goes far outside of official 
lines in self-governance. In this sense we govern ourselves by the 
Child Labor Society, the Consumers' League, the Civic Federa- 
tion or the Education Association as truly as by departments of 
commerce, labor, education, etc. 

"Though the citizen of a democracy may delegate power, he 
never absolves himself from responsibility, he never creates an 
organ so adequate to its total purpose that less formal organiza- 
tions looking to the achievement of social ends may be altogether 
dispensed with." 

12 



Philadelphia has had many such organizations. Not the least 
effective have been those associations of citizens whose purpose has 
been an active interest in educational progress. Not only have 
organizations of citizens been of constant aid in the spread of 
education in our community but the establishment of the public 
school system itself in 1818 was the result of such co-operation. 
In 1817 the Society for the Promotion of Public Economy was 
formed to secure immediate relief for the poor of the city. One of 
the five committees of this Society was that on Public Schools. 
This Committee found at once that material relief was not enough. 
It was made clear that if each citizen is to become a self-support- 
ing, helpful element of the community, an elementary education at 
public expense must be provided for all. The principle was pressed 
with such force that the Legislature of Pennsylvania in March, 
1818, enacted a law constituting the County of Philadelphia the 
First School District of Pennsylvania, and providing for free in- 
struction at public expense. 

One of the most vital of the successors of this early organization, 
in its far-reaching effects on the uplift of the community, has been 
the Public Education Association. Through it, a body of disinter- 
ested citizens have for the last thirty years given their services in 
sympathy, in independent investigation and in material aid, to 
the public schools. That some such organization as this is neces- 
sary to the welfare of the schools has been demonstrated. Stand- 
ing outside of the school system, as it does, but concentrating 
general public interest on the schools, it is as a medium of publicity 
and of helpful adjustment that it proves its worth. 

The Public Education Association (or Society) of Philadelphia 
was organized in 1881. The Society for Organizing Charity, 
founded m 1878, appointed as one of the five committees of its 
assembly a Committee on the Care and Education of Dependent 
Children. Miss Charlotte Pendleton was one of the members of 
this Committee, and chairman of a sub-committee which took up 
the questions of compulsory attendance and industrial education 
in November, 1880; and a few months later, in March, 1881, sug- 
gested the formation of an Education Association. A paper on 
" Public Schools in their Relation to the Community," read before 
the Philadelphia Social Science Association in April, 1880, by Mr. 
James S. Whitney (the first chairman of the Association),' had laid 
the foundation, and Miss Pendleton, Mr. Whitney and Mr. George 
L. Harrison were designated a committee to lay the matter before 
various educators and prominent citizens of Philadelphia. Later, 
the committee, consisting of James S. Whitney, Charles Godfrey 
Leland, Edward Shippen and Miss Pendleton, which was appointed 
to prepare rules and by-laws for such an organization, formed the 
nucleus of the present Public Education Association. 

The object of the Association, as stated in its first published 
circular, was: 

13 



"To promote the efficiency and to perfect the system of 
public education in Philadelphia, by which term is meant all 
education emanating from, or in any way controlled by, the 
State. They propose to acquaint themselves with the best 
results of experience and thought in education, and to render 
these familiar to the community and to their official repre- 
sentatives, that these may be embodied in our own public 
school system. They seek to become a center for work and a 
medium for the expression of opinion in all matters pertaining 
to education, as, for instance, the appointment of superin- 
tendents ; the compilation of school laws ; the Kindergarten 
in connection with public education ; manual instruction — 
how much is desirable, and what it is practicable to introduce 
into the public school system ; the hygiene of schools ; the 
adequate pay and the better qualifications of teachers; and, 
above all, to secure, as far as possible, universal education, by 
bringing under instruction that large class, numbering not less 
than twenty-two thousand children, who are now growing up 
in ignorance in this city. 

"These objects the Association hopes to attain through 
appeals to the local authorities and to the Legislature, and by 
such other means as may be deemed expedient." 



The original report to the Assembly Committee on Compulsory 
and Industrial Education dealt with four distinct points: (i) what 
is taught in the public schools; (2) what should be taught; (3) 
how many children are out of school; and (4) why they are out. 
And these are four vital points which the Public Education As- 
sociation has been considering for a full generation. They are 
still germane to the fundamental problem of education. 

Of the inception of this Association Charles S. Bernheimer, in 
his " History of Education in Philadelphia," says: 

"The Public Education Association, the legitimate successor 
of a long line of voluntary associations for the improvement of our 
public schools, was organized in 1881. It has contributed sub- 
stantially at every step of progress made toward the improvement 
of our school system. The establishment of the superintendency; 
instruction in sewing and manual instruction in the schools; the 
first manual training school; the idea of decoration of our public 
school rooms and buildings, the improvement of facilities for the 
education of teachers, — all owe much to this society." 

Since the consolidation of the city in 1854, three great results 
have formed the focal points of constructive effort which have 
marked the epochs of school progress for the city of Penn. These 
have been: 

First, the establishment of the superintendency in 1883; 

14 



Second, the reorganization of the Central Board of Education 
and of the local Boards through the legislative action of 1905; and 

Third, the popular movement for further revision of the school 
laws begun in 1908 and culminating in the passage of the School 
Code by the State Assembly, May 18, 191 1 . 

In each of these movements this volunteer organization of 
citizens has had an effective part. 

In his annual report to the Board of Education for the year 
1904, Superintendent Edward Brooks states: " Philadelphia was the 
first among the large cities to initiate and one of the last permanently 
to adopt a system of expert supervision of her public schools." 

The creation of a department of superintendence for the schools 
of the city was the first great constructive movement in which the 
Public Education Association took part. We quote from Boone's 
" Education in the United States," page 111: 

"The most unique city system in this country for many years 
was that of Philadelphia. Until 1883 it, among all the cities of the 
United States, was without a superintendent. In the midst of the 
enthusiasm aroused by the Centennial exhibit, leading citizens 
of the city organized somewhat informally, but with capital and 
enterprise, the ' Public Education Society.' Meetings were held, 
lectures were provided, educational systems and questions were 
studied, teachers were consulted, the papers used, and the city 
officers and general public educated. Finally, with a school 
census of 160,000 and a school enrolment of 90,000, with 2,500 
teachers and more than five hundred schools, the city was asked 
to provide some effective supervision. The ward committees, 
the Central Board, and municipal officers, readily consented; 
and (in 1883) Superintendent James MacAlister, with six associ- 
ates, was given the schools in charge to work out a system." 

An interesting personal touch in regard to the appointment of 
the first Superintendent of Schools is given by Dr. James Mac- 
Alister, the first incumbent, as he describes the appearance of 
Edward T. Steele and his companion as they appeared in Mil- 
waukee in search of a head for the Philadelphia schools. 

" I lived then in Milwaukee, which, as you may know, is a city 
of blizzards. In 1882 occurred the worst blizzard ever known. 
A bay window in my house looked out on a prospect of ten or 
twelve feet of snow. I looked out of my library and was surprised 
to see two men, wearing silk hats, struggling up the narrow path 
which had been prepared through the snow. Silk hats are not 
generally worn in the day time in western cities, even now, and it is 
no wonder I was surprised. The gentlemen called on me, saying 
2 15 



they had come from Philadelphia to secure a School Superintendent, 
and asked my advice in the matter." 

Years of earnest effort for improvement of the school laws re- 
sulted in 1905 in the second step, when a bill re-organizing the 
system of control of public schools in cities of the first class was 
passed. This bill reduced the Central Board of Public Education 
from forty-two to twenty-one in number and centralized re- 
sponsibility by reducing the power of the local or ward school 
boards. 

A leader in the Outlook of April 29, 1905, calls attention to 
this change as follows : 

"After ten years of steady agitation . . . school re-or- 
ganization is to be effected in January, 1906. The effect of the 
new legislation will be to provide more money and better business 
management for the public schools. . . . The gain is im- 
portant because of the recognition of some of the principles now 
generally accepted as fundamental to a good city school system. 
. . . On the other hand, the bill is but a step in the line of ad- 
vances needed and urged by the educational interests, led by the 
Public Education Association." 

The last progressive movement, the great effort resulting in the 
passage of the School Code of 191 1, had its beginning in 1908, 
when an appeal made to the people was answered by active inter- 
est expressed in mass meetings and the formation of the Educa- 
tional Alliance. Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, the wise and ener- 
getic Superintendent of Schools since 1906, mentioned this in his 
report for 1909: "Volunteer educational organizations have been 
most helpful, and it is but simple justice to make record of their 
patriotic and intelligent assistance. . . . The Public Educa- 
tion Association has successfully led in the great movements for 
a better school plant and for wise and practical changes in the 
curriculum of the schools. It carried to a successful issue the 
formation of an educational alliance, thus bringing into unity of 
action above eighty organizations of influential citizens devoted 
to the welfare of the city. The alliance represents above 125,000 
citizens and is a most valuable civic force." 

The School Code of 191 1, called "the most extensive and radi- 
cal instance of educational legislation that has ever been accom- 
plished in a single act in this country," marks the beginning of a 
new era. Of the work of the Public Education Association in 
connection with this splendid progressive enactment, the sponsor 
of the Bill was said to have remarked that in following up the 
various questions in the Code he frequently found the Secretary 
of the Association one step ahead of him. Under date of May 19, 
191 1, the Public Ledger states: 

16 



"The Public Education Association, of Philadelphia, which from 
the very beginning of the discussion of the school code scrutinized 
its provisions most carefully, prepared many amendments to improve 
the bill as it affected Philadelphia, especially, to safeguard the good 
things in the school laws which we have at present, and to secure 
at least the following advances, all of which are now incorporated 
in the law: 

"First. Power to levy taxes and borrow money for the new 
Board of Public Education of Philadelphia. 

"Second. Incorporation of a minimum tax limit of five mills. 

" Third. Reduction of the number of members of the Board of 
Education, so as to simplify the transaction of official business. 

"Fourth. Establishment of a State Board of Education. 

"Fifth. Establishment of a State School fund. 

"Sixth. Reduction of the membership of Boards of Education 
through the State. 

"Seventh. Reasonable provisions for selection of textbooks. 

"Eighth. Provisions in the interest of higher education 
throughout the State." 



17 



REORGANIZATION OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 

"What you wish to see in a nation you must first put into the 
SCHOOLS." — Humboldt 

In their efforts to acquaint themselves with the best results 
of experience and thought in education and to render these so 
familiar to the community and their official representatives that 
they might be embodied in the public school system, the founders 
of the Public Education Association soon realized that, if the re- 
sults of their efforts were to be made permanent, they must under- 
take a progressive campaign for the revision of the school laws. 
Not only must the immediate system of administering the public 
schools be changed, but this educational advance must then be 
fixed in the laws of the Commonwealth. 

Of the organization of the schools of the past generation. Dr. 
L. R. Harley, in his " History of the Public Education Association 
of Philadelphia" (page 14), says: "The school system of Phila- 
delphia is supported by local taxation, and the general administra- 
tion of the system is vested in a Board of Education appointed by 
the Judges of the Courts of Common Pleas and serving without 
pay. Each ward also has a Board of Directors, elected by the 
people and serving without compensation. In 1882 the number of 
pupils in the public schools was 105,541, with an average attendance 
of 94,145. The number of pupils out of all schools, public and 
private, was estimated at 28,000. 

"At that time nobody knew how all the children were taught 
in the four hundred school houses. The local boards did not know, 
for they did not visit the schools regularly, or if a director here and 
there did stray into a school occasionally, he had no means of 
judging whether it was worse or better than other schools, or 
whether it was good at all. A superintendent was as much needed 
for the schools as a mayor for a city. In 1882 New York had one 
superintendent and seven assistant superintendents, and Boston 
and St. Louis each had superintendents, while the schools of Phila- 
delphia, with one-third as many pupils as the whole State of Massa- 
chusetts, were without any adequate supervision." 

Although in 1841 Alexander D. Bache had been appointed 
"General Superintendent of the Public Schools" by the Board of 
Controllers, he was soon relieved of the responsibility on account 
of also being principal of the Central High School, which made 
his duties too weighty. And so, after one of the earliest attempts 
to establish this office, Philadelphia had the peculiar distinction, 

18 



up to the year 1883, of being the only large city without a school 
superintendent. 

There was agitation on this subject from 1864 on, but no definite 
move was made until early in 1882, when a sub-committee of the 
Association conferred with the Board of Education with a view to 
securing concerted action to obtain an appropriation from Councils 
for the establishment of the office of Superintendent. At a meet- 
ing of the Board of Education on April 11, 1882, a By-Law was 
adopted constituting the offices of Superintendent and Assistants, 
and subsequently City Councils made an appropriation of ^15,000 
for their salaries. On March 12, 1883, Professor James MacAlister 
of Milwaukee was elected Superintendent. 

The gain made by placing an expert at the head of the School 
System and giving into his hands the duties of organizing and 
standardizing that system can scarcely be overestimated. 

Those active in the Association who had supported this splen- 
did educational advance found that it would be difficult for the 
Superintendent to carry out his proper duties unless a clearer and 
more equitable relation could be established between the local boards 
and the central Board of Education. This, then, was the next activ- 
ity of the Association. In stating this point, the Report of the Asso- 
ciation for 1885 says: "The efficiency of the members of local boards 
is not the point at issue, but division of authority paralyzes the 
Central Board in efforts to carry into effect measures which it has the 
authority to inaugurate." 

The schools were still organized under the Act of Consolidation 
of 1854, and therefore laboring under a system that had been en- 
acted a generation earlier when the city was less than one-half its 
size. This Association began, therefore, a consistent and persistent 
effort for new legislation which should reconstruct the machinery 
of public education in the city, so that the school system might become 
a unified whole, and that the central Board of Education should have 
adequate power of legislation and the Superintendent, as the central 
executive expert, should have authority to carry out this legislation 
throughout all the schools. 

By 1885 the schools were organized under supervising principals, 
and in 1891 a Bill, prepared at the suggestion of this Association, 
was introduced into the Legislature to provide for necessary re- 
forms. In 1893, 1895 and 1897 similar Bills were introduced but 
without the result desired. In stating the viewpoint of this Associa- 
tion, the Report for 1894 says: "That a reform is necessary is the 
opinion of all who are familiar with the present system. The ad- 
ministration of the law should, in a school district so large as Phila- 
delphia, be committed to a single body, having powers defined by 
statute, being free from interference on the part of other bodies, 
answerable only to the appointing power." 

And the Report for 1899 states: "The need for a reorganiza- 

19 



tion of the school system will continue so long as the appointment, 
promotion and removal of teachers is divorced from the depart- 
ment of superintendence, and so long as a committee system of 
lay control in matters requiring expert knowledge and despatch 
continues to result in delays, irresponsibility, and undue limitation 
of the powers of the professional employes of the Board of Public 
Education." 

During 1899 a committee of the Association made a careful in- 
vestigation of the organization and financial aspect of school admin- 
istration in the larger cities of America, with especial reference to 
the needs of Philadelphia. Reports of this investigation, made by 
Professors James T. Young and Leo S. Rowe, were read at a public 
meeting on February 9, 1900, and were subsequently printed in the 
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 
Following this agitation a resolution was introduced in the State 
Assembly of 1901, authorizing the codification and revision of the 
school laws of the State. 

During the subsequent year a further study was made of (i) 
how the Board of Education should be chosen; (2) how the Super- 
intendent of Schools should be selected; (3) how school revenues 
should be raised; and a memorial was forwarded to City Councils 
by this Association urging the reorganization of the school system, 
which was still being administered under the Act of 1854. To 
prove how complicated was the body of school laws at that time, 
there was appended a list compiled by Mr. George Henderson, 
showing ninety-nine confused and confusing local and general laws 
affecting the public schools of Philadelphia. Later, an ordinance 
was introduced in Councils authorizing the appointment of a 
Commission of experts of national reputation to inquire into the 
condition of the public schools of the city. The failure of this 
ordinance to pass was due to the opposition of Councils to the ap- 
pointment of any person outside of the city on the proposed Com- 
mission. As a result of the investigation in educational administra- 
tion, an outline of the school systems of eight leading cities was 
presented at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Associa- 
tion on October 29, 1903; and in 1905 this was enlarged and pub- 
lished in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and 
Social Science. 

In January, 1904, President Charles W. Eliot presented a study 
of "A Good Urban School Organization" before a public meeting 
of the Association. This masterly address, interpreting as it did 
the experience of other cities in school reform, was so far-seeing in 
its various details that it still remains an ideal toward which both 
Philadelphia and other leading cities are striving. 

The legislative year of 1905 was a memorable one for the schools 
of Philadelphia. After ten years of constant agitation, the move- 
ment for a reorganization of the school system of Philadelphia 
culminated in an "Appeal to the Citizens of Philadelphia" which 

20 



appeared in the daily newspapers December 21, 1904, over the 
signatures of about fifty public school principals. This appeal was 
a plain and dispassionate, but, therefore, all the more eloquent 
indictment of the existing system of school control. It called 
attention in specific terms to the deplorable results of this system 
and prayed for the appointment of an educational commission 
which should study the alleged defects of the system and formulate 
for legislative enactment such remedial measures as would assure 
for the public schools of Philadelphia thoroughly modern administra- 
tive control. 

"To the Citizens of Philadelphia: 

" The deplorable administrative conditions under which the public school system of 
this great city must operate, the general lack of apprehension or abundance of mis- 
apprehension of the cause and consequent futility of most remedial measures sug- 
gested, have so profoundly impressed the undersigned— members of the teaching 
profession intimately acquainted with the problem through years of experience — as 
to constrain them to take the extraordinary step of making public appeal for the 
only effective reform possible, a complete reorganization of the system of control for 
the public schools of Philadelphia. 

"The present system of administration of public schools is based upon the acts 
of 1818 and 1836, and has received few essential modifications since those dates. 
The great growth of the city in wealth and in school population, the changing con- 
ditions that mark nearly a century of progress have not been met by corresponding 
changes in the organic school law. The system is consequently archaic, cumbersome 
and utterly inadequate to deal with the problems that today confront it. 

"To substantiate this statement we beg leave briefly to enumerate some of the 
results of the system up to date: — 



by: 



" I. Elementary school accommodations both inadequate and imperfect, as shown 

" (a) Some hundreds of children applicants for admission to school upon 
'waiting lists.' 

" (b) About 8000 pupils on 'part time' and in 'double classes.' 

" (c) About 8000 pupils in rented buildings, which are acknowledged make- 
shifts. 

" (d) A large proportion of pupils in buildings both antiquated and in need 
of repairs, some in such condition as to be positively dangerous to the health and 
safety of the children. 

" (e) Overcrowded classes in some schools, empty class rooms and slim at- 
tendance in others. 

"2. High school accommodations both inadequate and imperfect, as shown by: — 
" (a) Overcrowded classes. 

" (b) Overflow of pupils taught in rented annexes which are unsanitary and 
unsafe. 

" (c) Schools so centrally grouped that high school attendance is discour- 
aged to such an extent that Philadelphia ranks twenty-third in the list of the 
twenty-four greater cities of the Union as regards the number of pupils in high 
schools in proportion to the total school enrolment. 

"3. Unnecessary controversy in the selection and purchase of school sites and 
wasteful expenditure in maintenance of buildings, as shown by: — 

"(a) Purchase of school sites poorly located when suitable sites properly lo- 
cated are offered for sale. 

" (b) Petty repairs under so little central control that buildings fall into decay. 

21 



" (c) Inferior janitor service. These caretakers being compelled to hire their 
own assistants and purchase many of their supplies tend to come up to only 
minimum requirements, which in practice are sometimes deplorably low. 

"4. Theworkof superintendence and instruction poorly organized, as shown by: — 

" (a) Superintendents and other expert supervisory officers having much of 
their time taken up with clerical work and petty routine details that could be 
done by low-priced assistants. 

"(b) A considerable proportion of the class rooms (about 16 per cent.) still 
remaining under class principals who, since they are in charge of a class, have 
neither time nor opportunity to supervise the work of their schools. 

"(c) Appointment, promotion and tenure of office of teachers having little 
relation to merit, but depending upon other than professional influences. 

"(d) The superintendent having little more than advisory power both with 
school boards and the teaching force, the office tends to be held in insufficient 
respect, with consequent defects of discipline and lack of effective effort on the 
part of at least some of the members of the teaching body. 

" 5. Chronic warfare more or less open and avowed between the authoritative 
bodies which compose this 'triple-headed' system, as shown by: — 

" (a) Disputes between Councils and the Board of Education as to respon- 
sibility for the acknowledged bad condition of schools. 

" (b) Contention between the Sectional and Central School Boards as to mu- 
tual limitation of their powers and functions. 

" (c) Disagreement between adjacent sectional boards as to transfer of pupils, 
etc. 

"6. Some specific illustrations of the inefficiency of the system recently furnished 
are; — 

" (a) Full coal bins in some schools, other schools dismissed for lack of coal. 

" (b) Certain schools dismissed because heating plants are out of repair, 
although the conditions were known before the Summer vacation. 

" (c) Shortage of school supplies, compelling pupils to use ragged and un- 
sanitary textbooks, and to purchase some supplies regularly scheduled to be 
furnished by the city. 

" (d) Scarcity of teachers. Approximately one hundred much-needed new 
divisions not granted for lack of teachers. The substitute corps about one 
hundred teachers short of its proper complement. Classes dismissed for want 
of teachers. 

"These are some of the most glaring defects and bad results of the system. 
That conditions are bad is generally acknowledged, but the usual remedies suggested 
are utterly futile. The evils that exist are because of the system and in spite of the 
efforts of many able and public-spirited councilman and members of both the central 
and the sectional school boards, some of whom have devoted years of enlightened 
service to the interests of the public schools. 

" It is the system that is at fault, not the men who operate it. It could not be 
otherwise. In the confusion arising from many masters, in the conflict of local 
interests, in the unnecessary multiplication of centers of expenditure, in the waste- 
ful duplication of the machinery of administration, in the uncertainty of income 
from year to year, the economical and efficient conduct of the schools could not be 
maintained by any constituted authorities whatsoever. 

"We believe, therefore, that all public agitation of the question should be directed 
to the great end of securing for Philadelphia through legislative enactment a thoroughly 
modern system of school control. Furthermore, the system should not be changed 
by reckless or hap-hazard methods. Just as the selection of a route for the Panama 
Canal or the plan for our own new water supply was determined by the advice of 
skilled engineers, so should men of established reputation for their broad knowledge 
and practical experience in the successful operation of modern school systems be 

22 



consulted in the formation of a plan to place our schools upon this higher plane of 
administrative efficiency. This is the unquestioned right of the children of our city. 

" We therefore believe it to be the duty of the citizens of Philadelphia to demand 
the appointment of an Educational Commission for the purpose of formulating and 
recommending for legislative enactment a definite plan for the reorganization of 
public school administration in Philadelphia — this commission to be composed of 
men of ability and integrity whose conclusions would receive the unqualified support 
of the entire community. It is not a party question; it is not a question of partisan 
politics at all, but it is a question of vital interest for every home in this famous City 
of Homes and demands instant attention." 

Coming, as it did, from those within the system, this was so 
clear and specific that the program it suggested received immediate 
and hearty pubhc support, and the Board of Education itself took 
the initiative in making practical and effective response to its 
demands, it appointed a Commission empowered to prepare and 
submit for legislative action an Act of Assembly "making any 
changes deemed wise and desirable for the first school district of 
Pennsylvania." The members of the Commission were: Chair- 
man William W. Justice, later Honorary President of the Associa- 
tion, Hon. William H. Lambert, Hon. David H. Lane, President 
Henry R. Edmunds of the Board of Education, and Dr. Martin G. 
Brumbaugh, at that time in charge of the Department of Pedagogy 
of the University of Pennsylvania. 

A Bill was prepared by this Commission, passed by the Legis- 
lature on April II, and signed by the Governor on April 22, 1905. 
By this act the Board of Education was reduced in number from 
forty-two to twenty-one members, and its duties were made legis- 
lative and not executive in nature. The forty-two sectional boards 
were permitted to remain only as visitorial bodies. The day of 
these sectional boards as legislative bodies had ended with the 
consolidation of the city in 1854, upon the appointment of the 
central Board of Education; their function as executive bodies, 
except in the appointment of janitors, terminated with the old 
school law on January i, 1906. Even the retention of this last 
executive function is a source of confusion. Since the control of 
school property, including the lighting, heating and sanitation, 
rests with the Department of Buildings, there is division of author- 
ity when the local boards have the power of appointment of the 
janitors who have direct charge of these plants. The day may 
soon come when this last logical step in the centralization of re- 
sponsibility shall be taken through amendment of the Code. 

Three great gains thus accrued from this legislation: First 
the executive powers formerly lodged in various and varied local 
boards of education were abridged; second, authority and re- 
sponsibility were centered upon a small Board of Education repre- 
senting the city as a whole; third, this Board of Education was 
granted an assured income which it could predict in general and 
thus base its business management upon a definite budget. 
Though Councils still retained the right to apportion the appropria- 
tion in detail, they were required by law to place at the disposal of 

23 



the schools a definite sum, not less than five mills on each dollar 
of the tax on all real estate. This guaranteed, in theory at least, 
adequate support for the schools and an automatically increasing 
income. 

A splendid step had been made toward efficient centralized 
management of the schools, in the transfer of executive duties 
from sectional boards to experts, in the reduction of the number of 
the Board of Education and in the appointment of these members 
at large instead of from the respective wards of the city. Yet there 
was much left to be desired. The Outlook, under date of April 29, 
1905, shows this need and prophesies many of the concrete gains 
made since that time: 

"On the other hand, the bill is but a step in the line of ad- 
vances NEEDED and urged by the educational interests, led by the 
Public Education Association. A smaller hoard, complete control 
of appropriations, and a regular provision for sites and construc- 
tion by the appropriation of an additional mill from the annual city 
tax are asked. A fixed term is urged for the Superintendents 
and their assistants, and also statutory power for the Board of 
Superintendents, — to appoint, promote, and dismiss teachers, to 
determine the course of study, and to select the educational supplies. 
Similar powers in their respective departments remain to be assured 
to the Superintendents of Buildings and of Supplies. For teachers, 
the additional inducement of promotion for merit, — even more valued 
than appointment by merit, — is desired. An examining hoard, 
independent of the appointing power, to determine the relative 
fitness of all employees, including not only teachers, but also clerks, 
janitors and attendance officers, is regarded as of great impor- 
tance." 

It is interesting to note that through the next step in progress, 
the Code of 1911, fifty per cent of the needs thus stated were 
gained. Those printed in italics have been secured; those printed 
in bold face are still to be achieved. 

On January 1, 1906, the new Board of Education, consisting of 
twenty-one members appointed under the new law, met and 
organized, and on July i, 1906, the new Superintendent of Schools, 
Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, was elected. Since the new Superinten- 
dent and four of the members of the Board were active members of 
the Public Education Association, the Association planned its cam- 
paign for a better organization of the schools with renewed hope. 

It at once became apparent that, if the neglect of years was to 
be corrected, it would be necessary not only to use the five mills 
appropriated for the schools with judicious care but that large 
loans must be floated for repairing old school buildings and erecting 
new ones to provide for the swarms of children who were in rented 
buildings, on part time, or entirely unable to secure school ac- 
commodations. During 1907 the immediate need for a ^5,000,000 
loan was urged. In this agitation a new usefulness of the sectional 

24 



boards as a direct voice of the people was found. Most of the 
forty-one women directors, during that year, joined this Associa- 
tion, and many effective meetings were held in which the crying 
needs of the schools were clearly presented. 

During 1908 the widespread appeal of the citizens for adequate 
support of the schools was heard by Councils, and a loan of ^2,500,- 
000 was authorized. This was only half the amount, however, 
which the schools were clearly in need of, and at once renewed 
activity for larger financial support was begun. The mass meeting 
held by the Association in the Academy of Music, January 13, 
1909, at which stirring 'appeals were made and facts presented to 
prove the need of ^4,000,000 as a minimum loan to provide "a 
decent school and a decent seat in it for every child in Philadel- 
phia," resulted in that year in a second loan being authorized by 
Councils. This loan was for ^1,750,000, and ^500,000 of it was 
assumed by the Board of Education in November of that year. 
Even with this meager amount in hand, the new organization under 
the efficient Superintendent and the progressive members of the 
Board, made rapid strides. 

It had been increasingly evident that if the schools not only 
of Philadelphia but of the State as a whole were to be placed on the 
high plane of efficiency which this Commonwealth deserved, the 
mass of unorganized and conflicting legislation upon the statute 
books of the State must be collated and codified. The Associa- 
tion, therefore, used all possible influence with the Governor to 
persuade him to approve the joint resolution of the Legislature 
of 1907 for the appointment of a Code Commission. In September 
of that year Governor Edwin S. Stuart appointed seven men well 
able to cope with the school problems of the State, whose duty it 
was to bring order out of this legal chaos. 

These were: Dr. Nathan C. Schaeffer, Superintendent of Pub- 
lic Instruction, President of the Commission; Dr. George M. 
Philips, Principal of the State Normal School at West Chester, 
Secretary; Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, Superintendent of the Pub- 
lic Schools of Philadelphia; John S. Rilling, Esq., of Erie; Super- 
intendent James M. Coughlin, of Wilkes-Barre; Hon. David B. 
Oliver, for many years President of the School Board of Allegheny; 
and William Lauder, of Riddlesburg, a school director in Bedford 
County. 

After two years of effort, this Commission proposed to the 
Legislature of 1909 a Code which should organize the system of 
education in Pennsylvania into a unified whole. Members of the 
Association were constantly active, both in Philadelphia and at 
Harrisburg, in placing before the Commission accurate information 
m regard to Philadelphia conditions. 

All but one of the provisions which were particularly urged by 
this Association were adopted. Under a greatly amended form 
this Code passed the Legislature but was vetoed by the Governor. 

25 



When the Code of 1 909 failed to receive the signature of Gover- 
nor Stuart, on the ground that some one without authority had 
altered an important technical phrase, public sentiment prevailed 
upon the members of the Code Commission to maintain their 
organization during the legislative interim and to present a revision 
of the School Code in the spring of 1910. The work of the Com- 
mission was unofficial, but the members gave cheerfully of their time, 
labor and means that every person in the State might have an op- 
portunity to read and review the provisions of the proposed Code 
before the Assembly of 191 1. 

The Secretary of this Association early in September exhausted 
5,500 copies of a "Parallel Comparison of the Proposed System 
with the Present System of Public Education in Pennsylvania," 
which he had made for the purpose of simplifying the enormous 
quantity of material still contained in the new Code. The " Com- 
parison" was reprinted in various journals, either in whole or in 
part. The "Teacher" of Philadelphia, "The Pennsylvania School 
Journal," the Philadelphia Press and other Philadelphia morning 
papers asked for the privilege of reprint. 

After wide-spread publicity had been given to the Code and 
after numerous non-public conferences in this city to which mem- 
bers of the most influential educational and civic societies were 
invited by the Association for impartial survey of the provisions 
of the new measure, it was decided to request the School Code 
Commission to meet representative citizens of Philadelphia at 
dinner on Friday evening, November 18, 1 910, at the Hotel Wal- 
ton. Here educators and city officials of Philadelphia heard Dr. 
George M. Philips of the Commission on behalf of the Code, and 
in turn presented to the Commission a full statement of the sig- 
nificance to Philadelphia of three provisions in the Code: 

1. The separation of the financial control of school moneys 
from Councils; 

2. The desirability of reducing the number of members on 
the Board of Education from twenty-one to seven, and of their 
election to office by vote of the tax-payers of the city; 

3. The desirability of a strong State Board of Education. 

Senator Edwin H. Vare and Senator Ernest L. Tustin spoke from 
the legislative standpoint; Mr. Avery D. Harrington presented the 
viewpoint of the Board of Education; while Mr. Otto T. Mallery, 
Mr. George Henderson, Dr. Cheesman A. Herrick and Mr. Maurice 
Pels represented this Association. 

In explanation of the importance of independent financial con- 
trol for the First School District, a committee of the Public Educa- 
tion Association presented a Budget of School Expenses to cover 
the years 1911-1915, the importance of which cannot be overesti- 
mated. This Budget is today the basis of school expenditures 

26 



under the new Board of Education, and was so accepted by Super- 
intendent Brumbaugh in his Annual Report of 191 1. 

Immediately after this, at the request of the President of the 
State Educational Association, Mr. George Henderson prepared an 
article entitled " How can the Public Schools of Philadelphia be 
Relieved from the Present Financial Strain? A Review of School 
Expenditures." This was read at Harrisburg by the Secretary of the 
Association on December 27, and received wide-spread attention in 
the public press of the city, creating genuine interest in the value of 
the School Code to Philadelphia on its financial side. We quote 
the summary of this article, representing the creed of the Asso- 
ciation. 

PROPOSALS FOR SCHOOL LEGISLATION AFFECTING PHILADELPHIA 

1. The Board of Public Education of the First School District 
of Pennsylvania should have independent power of taxation, not 
less than five nor more than six mills on each dollar of the total 
assessment of real property of said school district. 

This continues the present rate and places the control with 
the Board of Public Education. 

2. The Board of Public Education of the First School District 
of Pennsylvania should have the right to borrow money to the 
amount of two per cent of the assessed valuation of the said school 
district and an additional one per cent of the assessed valuation 
by vote of the people. 

This places in the hands of the Board of Public Education 
the means of providing for present and future needs of the 
schools. It would give the Board the power to put the schools 
on a thoroughly modern basis. 

3. The members of the Board of Public Education of the First 
School District of Pennsylvania should be elected at large. 

This is in consequence of the provisions for independent 
taxation and the right to borrow. The revenue raising body 
should be directly responsible to the people. 

4. The Board of Public Education of the First School District 
of Pennsylvania should consist of not more than seven members. 

This definitely fixes responsibility and is in accord with the 
best educational experience. 

The following evening the principal meeting of the State Edu- 
cational Association convened to hear expert educators outside 
of Pennsylvania discuss "A State Board of Education." The 
speakers included Dr. Arthur D. Dean and Dr. Charles F. Wheelock 
of the New York State Education Department, Dr. Paul H. Hanus 
of Harvard University, and others — all in favor of a State Board 
of Education with powers adequately enlarged and well defined. 

27 



Considerable opposition among schoolmen of the State was shown 
in other speeches of the evening, attacking the section of the School 
Code which provided for a State Board, but after spirited discussion 
participated in by the Secretary of the Association, who spoke for 
the Code, the meeting ended with a strong wave of sentiment 
favoring a State Board. 

Early in the session of the Legislature of 191 1, Senator Ernest 
L. Tustin, on behalf of the School Code Commission, introduced 
the School Bill upon the floor of the Senate. From the day of its 
introduction to the day when it was signed by Governor John K. 
Tener, it was evident that the state-wide publicity of its provisions 
and the intelligent discussion of its important measures had as- 
sured for it a respectful hearing. Selfish local interests, reactionary 
schoolmen, and citizens who had never learned to co-operate with 
others, were its bitterest enemies. It is a remarkable fact that 
political leaders in all parts of the State were little concerned, 
oneway or the other, with the passage of the School Code. It was 
a splendid exhibition of a demand on the part of parents and tax- 
payers to secure for succeeding generations the best school law 
that the present generation could devise. 

Early in the campaign it became clear that the question of ap- 
pointment or election of the members of the Board of Education 
for the two cities of the first class, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, 
would be a central point of conflict in public opinion. In this 
city, discussion of the original elective clause in the Code culmi- 
nated in a meeting at the City Club, held on Saturday afternoon, 
March 18, 191 1, to which leading educators and members of both 
Houses of the Legislature were invited. The speakers were almost 
unanimously in favor of the reduction in the size of the Board, 
though opinions differed as to appointment or election of the 
members. 

Another provision of the School Code which was given the most 
painstaking scrutiny throughout the campaign was the clause con- 
ferring on the new Board of Education the power to levy not less 
THAN FIVE MILLS on each dollar of the total assessment of real 
property. It was felt that the Philadelphia schools could not be 
assured of sufficient support unless a definite minimum rate were 
fixed. When the minimum clause was removed from one of the 
early revisions of the Code, the Secretary appeared before the 
Philadelphia representatives in the Legislature in support of its 
reinstatement. Through the aid of friendly legislators who had 
not realized the importance of its retention, the minimum clause 
was restored. 

Probably no clause of the Code was more warmly contested 
than the provision requiring the preparation of eligible lists for 
teachers and employees of the Board of Education of all classes 
and grades except the very highest. Certain powerful forces 
among supposed friends of the schools finally secured the exemp- 

28 



tion from eligible lists of all teachers in all the higher schools in 
the city — a very unjust discrimination against the teachers in the 
elementary schools. 

President George Henderson, at the request of Senator Tustin, 
drafted a clause which was incorporated in the Code, securing to 
the First School District the right to regard non-payment of school 
taxes as liens on real property, precisely the same legal security 
that is reserved to the city for nonpayment of city taxes. The 
value of this clause has been overlooked by scores of people inter- 
ested in the Code who may not realize the strength of unfriendly 
efforts to render the provisions of the new Code non-effective in 
operation. 

The School Code was passed by a vote of one hundred and 
thirty-eight to forty-nine in the House and thirty-eight to eight 
in the Senate, and was signed by Governor Tener on May i8, 191 1. 
When it was certain that the Bill would be passed, the Board of 
Directors of this Association, in acknowledgment of the services 
of the members of the Code Commission to the State, gave them 
a hearty endorsement for appointment on the State Board of 
Education. 

The Code of 191 1 made possible throughout the State a long 
step forward in a sane policy of business management. During 
the following year at least five distinct results were secured, 
namely: 

First, a change in the method of examination of teachers for high 
school positions, so that these positions might be secured on a more 
equitable basis; 

Second, the attempt to unify the business system of the various 
executive departments of the Board, through the appointment of a 
central executive committee, to consist of the Secretary of the Board, 
the Superintendent of Buildings, the Superintendent of Supplies 
and the Superintendent of Schools as chairman; 

Third, changes in the By-Laws and Rules of the Board of Educa- 
tion, increasing the powers of the Superintendent; 

Fourth, a study of the organization and management of the high 
schools of Philadelphia; 

Fifth, the reorganization of the high schools. 



29 



CO-OPERATION THROUGH COMMITTEES 

"The key-word of all true democracy is co-operation."— Mary V. Grice 

Committee work has always been a prominent feature of the 
Association's plan of action. The organized efforts of five persons 
working as a committee have proven to be at least twice as effective 
as those of five persons working as individuals. The key-note must 
be co-operation. A glance at the different committees of the As- 
sociation as they were first formed, as from time to time their ac- 
tivities were enlarged or changed in character, gives the scope and 
development of the whole undertaking. The roll of those who have 
given effective service on these committees, as listed in the annual 
reports of the Association, shows that the work has been done by 
constructive thinkers of the day, who saw in the public schools the 
fundamental social agency of the community. 

We state below the various committees that have been active in 
the Association, with the date of establishment of each. Some lasted 
but a few years; others grew into separate organizations, and others 
have continued their efforts to the present time. 

The Committees of the Association 

Date Date 

organised organised 

Conference with Board 1882 Medical Inspection 1899 

Schools 1883 Compulsory Education 1899 

Law 1883 Civics and Patriotism 1899 

Kindergartens 1888 Finance 1900 

Household Economy 1888 Libraries 1901 

Public Meetings 1898 Vacation Schools 1903 

Art 1898 Backward Children 1904 

Manual Training (afterwards Reorganization of School System . . 1904 

Industrial Education) 1898 Playgrounds and Social Centers . . . 1908 

High Schools 1899 Publications and Publicity 1908 

Educational Alliance 1910 

The Committee on Conference with the Board of Education was 
formed in 1882, and demonstrated the constant aim of the Associa- 
tion to keep in touch with the Board of Education and its work. A 
statement from the Report of 1887 shows the continued purpose of 
such a committee: 

"This Society, originated without reference to that Board, has 
found their truest means of advancing their objects to be in its sup- 
port; supplementing their work of administration by becoming a 
channel for the expression of public opinion and an agent for bringing 
before the community from time to time the questions at issue." 

30 



COMPULSORY EDUCATION 

"There are many plans for improving the government of cities; the 

BEST IS THAT WHICH SIMPLY ASKS THAT THE CITY's CITIZENS BE EDUCATED." — 

John Cotton Dana 

One of the first purposes of this Association was to secure universal 
education. Founded a comparatively short time after the complete 
organization of a free public school system, and when the theory was 
still widely held that education was for the benefit of the individual 
and should be paid for by him except in cases of poverty, the Associa- 
tion throughout its earlier years bent every effort, by means of lec- 
tures, public meetings and the public press, toward spreading the 
fundamental idea that, in order to maintain its integrity, the State 
must assume the function of the education of all its citizens. 

Although the general belief was that a large portion of the child- 
hood of the community was growing up in ignorance in this city — 
this number being estimated at 22,000 in 1882 — no accurate facts were 
at hand. One of the first efforts of this Association, therefore, was 
to urge the taking of a school census, so that accurate data upon the 
situation might be gained. For nearly fifteen years the two ques- 
tions — how many children are not in school, and why have they left 
school? — were urged again and again, until in 1894 a specific sum was 
appropriated by the Association for the work of answering these perti- 
nent questions. By Act of Assembly of May 16, 1895, however, a 
census of all children of school age was directed to be taken, and this 
function was accordingly left to the State authorities. 

This enactment, crowning the efforts of fourteen years, not only 
required the enumeration of all children between the ages of eight and 
thirteen years within the school districts of the State, but it further 
prescribed that parents or guardians of children between eight and 
thirteen years of age must send them to school at least sixteen weeks 
of each year. By the Act of July 12, 1897, a more complete Com- 
pulsory Education Law was enacted, and the Philadelphia Depart- 
ment of Compulsory Education was organized in the fall of that year. 

In January, 1898, this Association, in co-operation with the Civic 
Club of Philadelphia, published a Report on Compulsory Education, 
which furnished an exhaustive study of compulsory school laws both 
in America and in foreign countries, and showed that Philadelphia 
was the last city in America or Western Europe with a population of 
over a million inhabitants to require the attendance of children at 
school. 

3 31 



In this same year the first special school for truant and incorrigible 
children was established, though the first class for backward children 
in a regular school was not organized until 1901. 

As an immediate result of the passage of the Act of 1 898, some 
nine hundred half-time pupils were placed on full time, and 2, 169 non- 
attendants were placed in school; and on February 2, 1898, the 
Attendance Officers began a systematic census of all children between 
six and twenty-one years of age. With the completion of this cen- 
sus, for the first time the authorities in Philadelphia had accurate 
knowledge of the number of children of legal school age out of school 
and the cause of their absence. 

Those interested did not rest satisfied, however, with the passing 
of the law, but through careful study of its enforcement and through 
inquiry into the cases of those children who escaped the law (as shown 
in the Report on Truants and Incorrigibles, in 1899), the subject was 
constantly brought to public notice. 

In 1901 and again in 1905 the State Legislature took up the ques- 
tion of universal education, and more stringent laws were passed, 
establishing the following requirements: 

(a) That no child under fourteen shall be out of school; 

(b) That a child between the ages of fourteen and sixteen may be 
employed only on presenting a certificate showing that he is fourteen 
years old, that he can read and write English, and that he is physically 
able to perform the work required of him; 

(c) That such certificates shall be issued by the school authorities 
or the factory inspectors, and not by notaries as heretofore. 

The School Code of 191 1 omitted the requirement of physical 
ability, and restricted the issuance of certificates to the school authori- 
ties alone. 

Today the Bureau of Compulsory Education is an institution of 
the broadest social service in the community. Since its reorganiza- 
tion in July, 191 1, the work has been in charge of a Chief with an 
assistant and thirty-eight attendance officers. An annual school 
census is made, and working certificates are issued for over 1 7,000 
applicants per year. The present system gives an opportunity for 
following the child-workers during their employment and studying 
their condition while at work, and is of material aid to the students of 
child labor, the minimum wage and other social questions of the day. 
The Public Education Association has co-operated with this depart- 
ment in making analyses of the kinds of employment, wages, eco- 
nomic conditions, etc., of the boys and girls who leave school to go 
into industry, preparatory to advising and guiding those who are 
still in school but preparing to leave. 



32 



SCHOLARSHIPS 

"It is to safeguard the most vital interest, not only of the child, 

BUT also of the COMMUNITY, THAT COMPULSORY EDUCATION HAS BEEN MADE 
A CONSPICUOUS FEATURE OF OUR RECENT SCHOOL POLICY." — Nathan C. 

Schaeffer 

The enforcement of compulsory education for children up to a 
given age was found so difficult as to be practically impossible just 
as long as the avenues for employment of children were many and 
the restrictions few. For this reason the Committee on Compulsory 
Education of this Association gave its hearty co-operation toward the 
securing of the Child Labor Law of 1905. One of the principal argu- 
ments brought against the passage of this law was that it would work 
hardship upon parents, particularly widows who needed the support 
of their children. In order to meet this argument, the Public Educa- 
tion Association pledged itself to grant "scholarships" to any child 
between twelve and fourteen whose father was dead or disabled and 
whose earnings seemed to be a necessity to the family support; in 
order that all children under fourteen years of age should attend school 
regularly, without causing real hardship. Letters describing this 
scholarship guarantee were sent to women's clubs throughout the 
state, and some of these made pledges of a similar nature for their 
districts. 

Satisfied, therefore, of the ability of the different districts to help 
in caring for their own cases of dependent parents, the Legislature 
felt the chief objection to the Bill removed; and the act was passed 
May 2, 1905. 

In order to meet the requirements of the pledge made, over forty 
members of the Association subscribed an amount exceeding ^2,000 
a year with which to support the scholarships granted. Arrange- 
ments were made with the Society for Organizing Charity for careful 
investigation of each case reported; and a number of our members 
volunteered their services as Scholarship Visitors, to the families 
to whom awards were made. 

During the first year, out of one hundred and thirty-two cases 
investigated, twenty-seven scholarships ranging from $2.50 to ^3.00 
per week were granted, at a total cost of ^1,439.65. In the second 
year forty-three applications were received and ten additional scholar- 
ships granted; while during the third year the number was even less. 
Of the twenty-seven grants of the first year, nineteen ran for less than 

33 



a year. Thus it was shown that, as anticipated, when the law became 
actually effective, real hardship would be found in but few cases. 
For with all such legislation the usual experience is that ideas of 
necessity are gradually gauged to meet the requirements of the legis- 
lation and that what has perhaps seemed a necessity is often easily 
relinquished when forbidden under penalty. 

Since, therefore, these three years of support had proved both the 
desirability and the feasibility of the law, and since so few cases of 
real hardship could be found, the Association accepted the offer of 
the Society for Organizing Charity in May, 1908, to take over future 
grants with the financial support that had been secured for their 
maintenance. Through this action there was brought to a conclusion 
a work of immense value that had been carried out through the co- 
operation of this Association and which had made Compulsory Edu- 
cation really possible. 

This was practically the same kind of relief that has recently 
been given in various states under the form of Mothers' Pensions, 
Funds to Parents, etc., and showed by the records that if such relief 
is administered wisely the demand for it is likely to be lessened rather 
than increased. 

In spite of continued efforts to provide education for all, there 
were still cases of truancy to be contended with. It is a sad fact that 
absence from school is more often due to greed for gain or to care- 
lessness of parents than to wilful truancy on the part of the child. 
The concern of this Association was for the child, the real sufferer. 
Where the fault is due to the parent, a fine may bring the desired 
result; but there were found to be many cases in which the parent 
was practically unable to secure the child's attendance. In solving 
this difficult problem the Association co-operated with the Bureau of 
Compulsory Attendance, and the Law of 190 1 was so worded that these 
cases could either be placed by the Board of Education in a "special" 
(parental) school ; or could be committed to a special or reformatory 
school, wholly or partly supported by the State, where there is no such 
parental school (as in Philadelphia) ; or could be committed to the 
keeping of some society having for its object the placing of children 
in families properly supervised. It was this last provision for which 
the Association particularly lent its efforts and for at least two years 
it also labored earnestly to have a parental school established for 
truant children over twelve years of age, and to have all those under 
twelve given into the care of the Children's Aid Society of Pennsyl- 
vania, as an agent of the Board of Education. The Children's Aid 
Society co-operated with this Association with gratifying results, 
in caring for the cases that were transferred to it by the Board of 
Education, and this method was found to be both more economical 
and more efficient than the method of placing the younger children 
under institutional care. 



34 



MEDICAL INSPECTION 

"Every day children are actually murdered by neglect or by poison- 
ous MILK." — Nathan Straus 

As early as April, 1897, the attention of the Association was called 
to the value of daily medical inspection in schools; and a Committee 
was formed to investigate the workings of this service in other cities, 
in order to prepare the way for its introduction into the Philadelphia 
school system. Already some foreign countries had adopted such a 
practice; and in Boston, Chicago and New York, daily medical 
inspection had been planned. 

An epidemic of diphtheria, in November and December of 1897, 
led the Philadelphia Board of Health to propose daily medical ex- 
amination for the infected districts, and the Board of Education 
offered to co-operate with the Health authorities. In 1898 inspection 
was actually begun in the schools by fifteen volunteers who assisted 
the Chief Medical Inspector. 

In January, 1900, two hundred physicians volunteered their 
services for a period of one year, with the understanding that if they 
demonstrated the value of medical inspection, appropriations would 
be made to continue the work upon a definite basis. Although stren- 
uous endeavors were then made by the Inspectors' Association, the 
representative medical societies of Philadelphia, and the Committee 
of this Association to obtain appropriations from Councils, the effort 
proved a failure, and the work started the second year with diminished 
numbers, without organization, and with no encouragement from the 
Board of Public Education. 

In 1903 the newly appointed head of the Department of Health 
and Charities, Dr. Edward Martin, gave his endorsement to daily 
medical inspection; and after a mass meeting in December an appro- 
priation of $60,000 was made by Councils. 

During 1903 attention centered upon the tests for sight; and so 
successful were the sight tests planned to be made by teachers that 
various other cities adopted the Philadelphia method. The Chairman 
of the Sub-committee on Sight and Hearing during the following year 
prepared a paper on the work in Philadelphia for the International 
Conference of School Hygiene in Nuremberg, Germany. 

By 1906 the need became evident not only for more school in- 
spectors but for visiting nurses who should follow up the excluded 

35 



cases in their homes, and an appeal was made for this service. At 
first volunteer workers from the Association assisted the Visiting 
Nurse Society, which had since 1903 provided one nurse for the public 
schools. 

In 1908 the Board of Education assumed the expense of an organ- 
ized system of visiting nurses. The School Code of 191 1 requires 
thoroughly organized medical inspection, and since then the health 
of the school children is safeguarded by the services of sixty-four medi- 
cal inspectors, an eye clinic, three dental clinics and a corps of twenty- 
four nurses. 

Along the same lines of promoting the physical welfare of the 
child, the Association also cooperated in several other directions. 

In 1 91 2, for the conservation of the health of the future school 
children, an active part was taken in the first Baby Saving Show held 
in Philadelphia, which was the forerunner of many such exhibitions 
of ways and means for lessening infant mortality. 

In the following year a committee of the Association, interested 
in granting opportunities for schooling to those deprived of such 
advantages, took the initiative in opening the first class for crippled 
children. An investigation was made of the needy cases in the dif- 
ferent school districts, and in the fall of 1913 a class of twenty-two 
was started in the McCall School. A specially adapted conveyance 
was secured to take the children to the class room and return them 
to their homes, luncheon was provided, and the salary of a matron to 
look after their physical wants throughout the day was guaranteed 
by the Association for the first month. 



36 



BACKWARD CHILDREN 

"Not to know what has transpired in former times is always to re- 
main A CHILD." — Cicero 

The Public Education Association was among the first to recognize 
the need of a different environment and a different kind of education 
for the child that is "different." Not only should the idiot or the 
feeble-minded be segregated but the backward mind, the atypical, 
the nervous, the astigmatic mind, must have different treatment 
from the normal. At the annual convention of the National Educa- 
tion Association in Los Angeles in 1907, a special committee was 
appointed to study and report on the training of exceptional children, 
and since that time there has been a movement toward the closer 
classification of abnormal types — a more scientific diagnosis of each 
case. But in Philadelphia, in 1899, almost a decade earlier, a class 
was organized in the Hollingsworth F^ublic School building, for chil- 
dren from seven to sixteen years of age who were not imbecile but 
who were incapable of progress in regular classes. This venture had 
the approval of the Board of Education, but the management and 
support were assured by the Public Education Association in co- 
operation with the Civic Club. 

For two years this school was conducted as an object lesson by 
these two volunteer associations. So efficient has such training proved 
to be, as a means of dealing with the problem of the defective child, 
that in 1901 the school was formally taken over by the City (as part 
of Special School No. 3) and appropriations were made for its main- 
tenance. From this small beginning has grown the present system of 
special classes for backward children in connection with the ele- 
mentary schools. In 1898 the first special school for truants and 
incorrigibles had been established, and by a natural classification of 
the attending pupils these schools were also organized for backward 
and mentally deficient children who could not maintain their standing 
in the grades. It was for this reason that the class started by the 
Association and the Civic Club in 1899 was merged into the special 
school system. In 191 2 there were eighty-six special classes in the 
ten school districts of the city, with a total attendance of 1690 chil- 
dren who were subnormal or in need of special training. These now 
include children who are backward mentally, others who are delin- 
quent and in need of disciplinary training, and four open-air or open 
window classes for the anaemic, undernourished, and those with 
tubercular tendencies. 

As the Philadelphia class was one of the first in the country in its 

37 



character of a free day school for backward and mentally deficient 
children, it was considered a proper subject for exhibition at the Paris 
Exposition in 1900 by the Director of Education and Social Economy 
of the United States Commission. At his request a portfolio of eight 
charts was sent by this Association, showing a comparison of similar 
schools in Providence and Boston with those in Philadelphia and a 
full description of the Philadelphia work. For this exhibit a bronze 
medal was received. 

The Buffalo Exposition next asked for this display and placed it in 
the Elementary Education Section rather than in that for Defectives. 
An exhibit was also sent to the National Education Association at 
Charleston in the same year. 

In 1905 a conference on this subject was held with the British 
Royal Commissioners visiting Philadelphia at that time; and during 
that winter the Association was represented on the Committee for the 
new Institution for the Feeble-minded at Spring City. 

It is interesting to follow the paths which resulted from the 
blazing of this trail. A notable conference on "Retardation" was 
held in December, 1908, under the auspices of this Association, at 
which addresses were given by Mr. Leonard P. Ayres, then General 
Superintendent of the schools of Porto Rico, Dr. Martin G. Brum- 
baugh, Dr. Roland P. Falkner, Dr. Luther H. Gulick, and Dr. 
Lightner Witmer. During this conference the statement was made 
that probably one thousand children who should be institutional cases 
were then in attendance on and clogging the development of the 
public schools. 

Two different lines of valuable research followed: first, in Febru- 
ary, 1909, a census of the mentally subnormal and the truant and 
incorrigible children in the public schools,* under the direction of the 
Bureau of Health in conjunction with the Department of Superin- 
tendence of Schools; second, a careful scientific investigation during 
the school year 1909-1 9 10, of the question of backward children in 
the schools, undertaken by a committee of experts appointed by the 
Superintendent of Schools. f The findings of this Committee were 
printed in the report of the Superintendent of Schools for the year 
1910. These investigations have resulted not only in a clearer under- 
standing of the problem of the backward child, but also in the de- 
velopment of open-air schools, open-window classes, school lunches 
and a careful study of individual cases in psychological clinics. 

* Document No. 3, Philadelphia Teachers' Association. 

t See Report of Superintendent of Schools, Philadelphia, 1909, p. 30. This 
committee comprised Milton C. Cooper, Holman White, Dr. Walter S. Cornell, 
Louis Nusbaum, Associate Superintendent Oliver P. Cornman, Chairman. 



38 



INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 

"See to it that no individual shall be compelled to choose between 

AN education without A VOCATION, AND A VOCATION WITHOUT AN EDUCA- 
TION." — Eugene Davenport 

From its inception the Association has had in view broad aims for 
educating the hand as well as the mind; that those of our boys and 
girls who are obliged to leave school early and enter industry may have 
at least some training along the lines of their chosen vocations; or, 
if none has been chosen, as is so often the case, that direction may be 
given to their hopes or ambitions. 

The first Superintendent of Schools of Philadelphia, in an address 
made in 1889, showed the peculiar appropriateness of the supremacy 
of this city in trade training, when he said: 

"William Penn, in one of the statutes framed for his infant colony, 
provided that ' all children within this Province of the age of twelve 
years shall be taught some useful trade or skill, to the end that none 
may be idle, but that the poor may work to live, and the rich if they 
become poor may not want.' 

"Today" (1889), he continued, "the public schools of this city 
are distinguished for the prominence given to manual training in their 
courses of instruction." 

There is sometimes confusion in the lay mind between manual 
and industrial training. 

"The former implies a training of the hand in the fundamental 
operations underlying all handicrafts. The latter implies preparation 
for some particular trade or special manual calling. The object of 
the former is primarily educational, though it is not, of course, any 
more than ordinary intellectual training, entirely without practical 
relations. The object of industrial training is immediately practical, 
and looks toward preparing the boy for some specific occupation, like 
that of plumber or carpenter." 

It was manual training that was first introduced into the Phila- 
delphia schools, and the Association was active from the start in 
urging this form of instruction. 

As early as 1828 a " Manual Labor Academy" had been instituted 
in Germantown, and was so successful that a provision was inserted 

39 



in the law of 1834 for establishing "manual labor schools." By 1875 
there was a committee on Industrial Art Education in the Board of 
Education, and arrangements were made with several private schools 
for giving training to a chosen number of boys and girls from the 
public schools. There had been manual training in other parts of the 
country in" charity" or reform schools, as well as in private schools, 
but the first public manual training school was the School of Industrial 
Art opened in Philadelphia in 1880 at the suggestion and with the 
help of Mr. Charles Godfrey Leland, who worked out a scheme which 
he had successfully introduced previously in England.* This school 
is a continued success and is unique in that it teaches groups of chil- 
dren from the different public schools during certain periods each day. 

In 1884 a sub-committee of the Association was appointed to 
arrange for a course of lectures on the various phases of industrial 
education, by such noted educators as Dr. G. Stanley Hall, Dr. James 
MacAlister, Professor John M. Ordway and Professor Edmund J. 
James. The expense of these lectures was borne by a special fund. 
Definite results of the continued agitation were shown by an ap- 
propriation from Councils for the establishment of the first Phila- 
delphia Manual Training School (the Central Manual Training High 
School, since merged into the West Philadelphia High School), 
opened September, 1885, with one hundred and twenty-five pupils. 
Mr. James S. Whitney, who was the first Chairman of this Associa- 
tion, and the chairman of the Committee on Manual Training Schools 
of the Board of Public Education, tells us that the second year the 
enrolment was almost doubled, and it was soon necessary to buy the 
adjoining property to accommodate the boys who desired to attend. 
In 1890 the Northeast Manual Training High School was opened, 
but there was still no manual training in the elementary schools. 

In 1888 Mr. William W. Justice, then the chairman of the As- 
sociation, suggested to the Board of Education that an exhibition of 
manual work should be given to bring more people into contact 
with this phase of school life. 

The Board was very willing to co-operate but felt that there were 
no funds available, whereupon the Association offered to become re- 
sponsible for the expense of such an exhibition, asking only that 
nothing should be left undone to bring this display up to the highest 
expectations of the public. The proposition was accepted, and the 
exhibit was most successfully held for four days. May 8 to 11, 
when 80,000 visitors watched the exercises in class and work-shop. 
The Association contributed over ^2,000 for this exhibition, and the 
following year provided sufficient funds to send a similar exhibit to 
Paris. 

In 1905 the Committee on Industrial Education renewed its efforts 
for the introduction of manual training into all the elementary schools, 

*See Report of Superintendent of Schools for 1904, p. 36. 
40 



for the reasons presented in the annual report for 1906, which holds 
good as well in this present year of grace. 

"The introduction of industrial education in the elementary 
schools is desirable for several reasons: first, the large number of 
children to whom the regular grade work does not appeal, and who 
are therefore trying to leave school at the earliest possible moment, 
or who become troublesome during a part of their school lives be- 
cause not interested; second, the evident need for the schools to 
teach more respect for manual labor, and to give a child a chance to 
see whether he has any aptitude for other occupations than clerical 
or unskilled labor; and third, the need for domestic training as shown 
by the investigations recently made by the Octavia Hill Association 
of the living conditions in three typical parts of the poorer districts. 
The schools should give a more adequate preparation for life." 

Since 1891 the James Forten School, Sixth above Lombard Streets, 
had served as a "sloyd" center for boys from the sixth grades of four 
elementary schools. Its pupils also had the advantage of the simpler 
forms of elementary manual training throughout its six grades, but 
as they advanced to the seventh and eighth grades of other schools 
without examination, their comparative standing with pupils in 
regular academic work was not recorded. 

In 1906 a different opportunity was offered, when the Philadelphia 
public Trades School, the first in this country, was opened. As "an 
enlightened apprenticeship" this school gave practical instruction 
in the trades, but though most helpful in the field covered, it has not 
supplied the need in the grade schools. 

In 1907 there were seven grammar schools with classes of boys 
receiving instruction in constructive manual training without inter- 
fering with their class standing. But the work was local and un- 
official, and though it had the sanction of the Superintendent of 
Schools, it was not supported by the Board of Education. 

To further this movement, an investigation of conditions in other 
cities was made. A committee of the Association, through its chair- 
man, Mr. Leslie W. Miller, submitted a report in 1907 on similar 
courses of study in ten cities: Boston, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, 
Indianapolis, San Francisco, Hartford, Springfield, Allegheny and 
Altoona; and outlined a program for use in the Philadelphia schools. 
All of these cities offered courses in paper, cardboard and woodwork- 
ing, and some included raffia, basketry, Venetian iron-work and sloyd. 
The suggestion of the Committee was for only the first three at the 
outset, and it was proposed that the equipment of the vacation schools 
be used, the Association offering to provide any lumber necessary or 
any other initial expense. 

In December, 1906, the Association co-operated with the Con- 
sumers' League, the Child Labor Committee, Civic Club, New 

41 



Century Club, in a comprehensive Industrial Exhibit at Horti- 
cultural Hall, where its work was given a prominent place, exhibiting 
models of unsatisfactory school conditions and showing how to 
ameliorate them. A showing was made of the work in the two 
schools that gave manual training, and great crowds were attracted 
by this live demonstration. 

The most interesting report of the Massachusetts Commission 
on Industrial and Technical Education had been issued in April, 
1906, setting forth the logical reasons for the universal spread of 
practical education, — reasons which are no less potent in 19 13 than 
they were then. We quote in part: 

"With the advent of the factory system, the introduction of 
machinery, the making of machines more and more automatic, and 
the division and subdivision of labor, the apprentice system gave way 
in the trades and nrianufactures. . . . The effects of the giving 
up of the apprentice system have all been aggravated by the conges- 
tion of population in cities." And "the effects of these changes," 
their report continues significantly, "are not most serious where we 
might naturally expect, in a lack of manual efficiency, though that is 
marked, but on the intellectual and moral side. . . . Not having 
any share in productive labor, and being out of touch with it, the 
youth have no standards by which to measure time or possessions 
or pleasures in terms of cost." 

As the result of an investigation conducted in forty-three cities 
and towns, among 5,459 children and three hundred and fifty-four 
establishments, representing fifty-five industries, the conclusions 
arrived at were as follows: 

That, "for the majority of children who leave school to enter 
employments at the age of fourteen or fifteen, the first three or four 
years are practically waste years so far as the actual productive value 
of the child is concerned, and so far as increasing his industrial or 
productive efficiency. The employments upon which they enter de- 
mand so little intelligence and so little manual skill that they are not 
educative in any sense. For these children, many of whom now 
leave school from their own choice before the completion of the gram- 
mar school course, further school training of a practical character 
would be attractive and would be a possibility if it prepared for the 
industries." 

Contrasted with America is European education, "the scope of 
which is so broad, its forms so multifarious, its methods so scientific, 
its hold upon public opinion so complete, and the impulse which it is 
giving to industrial leadership so powerful, as to entitle it to the most 
thoughtful and respectful study." Industries recruited by chance 
cannot long compete with similar industries recruited from men who 
have had technical training. 

42 



" Whatever," they conclude, "maybe the cost of such training, 
the failure to furnish it would in the end be more costly." 

In 1909 this report was carefully studied by a committee of the 
Association, and the plan was made to carry on a similar investiga- 
tion in Philadelphia. The chief investigator and statistician of the 
Massachusetts Commission, Miss Susan M. Kingsbury, was invited 
to look over the field and assist in planning the work for this city. 
Co-operation was attempted with the Russell Sage Foundation for 
this. A list was made of twenty-five associations having to do with 
social and industrial welfare, and many facts were gathered by letters 
and questionnaires, showing the need of industrial training in the 
schools. Lists were compiled of all schools that gave any technical 
education, and co-operation was begun with the Armstrong Associa- 
tion with the result of inaugurating manual training in three colored 
schools in Germantown. This year saw the beginnings of the Bureau 
of Information on subjects touching vocational education in Phila- 
delphia. 

During 1910, after various public meetings and wide discussion 
on the subject, manual training was introduced into six elementary 
schools with no cost to the Board of Education, "through the co- 
operation of philanthropic citizens." 

During 1911 and 191 2 the Association arranged for its secretary 
to study the most recent developments in industrial training and voca- 
tional guidance in various cities throughout the country. As a result, 
a definite plan was submitted to the Superintendent of Schools for 
the establishment of a vocational bureau as a part of the educational 
equipment of the city. 

In co-operation with the Bureau of Compulsory Education, 
careful analysis was made of the kinds of occupations entered and 
wages received by the 14,000 boys and girls who during that year were 
employed in the various industries of the city. The Trades School 
printed tables resulting from this study, and these were circulated 
widely through the schools. Subsequently a study of the economic 
conditions in relation to the school training received by the 15,000 
pupils enrolled in the evening elementary and high schools was 
undertaken. 

On February 1 1, 191 3, the Board of Education provided for fifty 
per cent, increase in the number of shop centers, thus securing some 
degree of practical training for nearly all of the boys of the seventh 
and eighth grades of the public schools. 

Following this splendid growth, on March 1 1, the Public Educa- 
tion Association immediately presented a statement to the Board of 
Education, urging them to place a skilled Director of Industrial 
Training in charge of the entire work in the school system. This 
action was followed by a resolution offered by Mr, John Burt urging 
the immediate appointment of such a director. 

43 



HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY 

"She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the 

BREAD OF IDLENESS . . . SHE MAKETH FINE LINEN." — Solomon 

Although this committee was formally organized about i888, the 
capable Secretary of the Association, Miss Charlotte Pendleton, had 
been quietly and earnestly working since 1878 toward instruction for 
girls that should train the hand as well as the brain. At the first 
meeting of the Association it was recommended that sewing should be 
taught in the Girls' Normal School, and in the fall of 1881 this was in- 
troduced. In 1885 the Grammar Schools were also given this oppor- 
tunity. The next consideration was the teaching of cooking, and 
great popular interest was shown in this subject. When in 1887 the 
Board of Education agreed to place cooking in the curriculum of the 
Normal School and to provide two rooms in the basement for this 
purpose, the Public Education Association paid for the equipment, 
guaranteed to give ^i ,500 to meet the expenses, and for two years con- 
tributed the salary of the teacher, until the city assumed entire control 
in 1889. 

In 1888 a petition was presented to the Board of Education to 
establish a manual training school for girls, since the Manual Training 
School for Boys, opened in 1885, had proved so successful, and the 
Association offered to guarantee the rent of a building for three years. 
Although this offer was declined, our Committee continued their 
interest, and in the following year a comprehensive plan was made for 
a "High School of Applied Household Science" which should help 
girls in the same way that the new Manual Training School aided 
boys, to train them for their position in the family, with an under- 
standing of the economy of the home. Heretofore, advanced educa- 
tion for girls had meant normal school or college training along 
strictly cultural lines. This plan was to teach women to specialize 
in manual work which would be lucrative and yet distinctly woman's 
work. This carefully thought-out plan, though endorsed and ap- 
proved by the New Century Club, the Working Women's Club, lead- 
ing journals and principals and teachers of the boys' Manual Training 
School, was not accepted by the Manual Training Committee of the 
Board of Education, even when presented with an offer of a contribu- 
tion of funds from the Association, on the ground that the further 
expenditure that would be demanded from the Board was needed 
elsewhere. 

It was not until 1893 that the separation of the Girls' High and 
Normal Schools broadened the work for girls and gave them oppor- 

44 



tunity for choice of subjects. At that time a business or commercial 
course was introduced. This at once became popular, meeting as it 
did a need that had not yet been provided for. The classes in this de- 
partment increased so rapidly that it was thought necessary to separ- 
ate this work from the regular academic departments in the high 
school. A separate commercial high school for girls, with a three- 
years' course, was therefore established in 1898. 

Steadily though quietly a group of workers for women's interests 
continued their influence throughout this period. In 1909, under the 
leadership of the late George H. Cliff", who was at that time chairman 
of the Committee on High Schools for Girls, the new William Penn 
High School for Girls was opened. This school, housed in one of the 
highest type of modem school structures, provided for the girls of 
Philadelphia avenues for advancement along the lines not only of 
cultural studies in the academic department, but of commercial train- 
ing, applied arts, library economy and household science as well, 
thus realizing the hopes and perfecting the plans for training the eye, 
the hand and the brain made by this Association some twenty years 
previously. 

The West Philadelphia High School for Girls, opened in 19 12, 
is ofi'ering similar opportunities for the girls who live west of the 
Schuylkill River, and it is hoped that another year will see the girls 
of Germantown and Frankford sharing these advantages. 



ART 

This Committee was called together in 1898 for the definite 
furtherance of artistic ideals in the schools. Through it the Associa- 
tion donated $100 for engravings, photographs, etc., for decoration 
in the Girls' Normal School in 1894. Three years later, the Art 
Committee contributed the sum of $300 for the decoration of a room 
in the Alice Lippincott School at Nineteenth and Pine Streets, in 
memory of Mrs. J. Dundas Lippincott, for fourteen years the efficient 
treasurer of the Association. In 1900 this Committee was successful 
in creating a strong sentiment in favor of granting assistants to the 
Director of Drawing, and three were appointed that year, with the 
number since increased to ten. 

After 1904, when the Committee on Manual Training had broad- 
ened into that on Industrial Training, and various members of the 
Art Committee were serving on the larger committee, the Committee 
on Art as such was dropped. 



45 



KINDERGARTENS 

"Give a child large interests, and give them young." — Alice Freeman 
Palmer 

Kindergartens in the Philadelphia public schools owe their exist- 
ence largely to the efforts of Miss Anna Halloweil, whose rare ability 
and broad culture led to special interest in the welfare of childhood. 

The first kindergarten was opened under her inspiration in a public 
school building (later the Garfield School) at Twenty-second and 
Locust Streets. 

Miss Halloweil is remembered as the first woman member of the 
Board of PubHc Education (owing her election chiefly to the efforts 
of Mr. Edward T. Steele, then President of the Board, whose great 
services to the city of Philadelphia have never received their full 
recognition), and she came into this membership with an open mind 
and the will and the ability to do her share in the work. She was one 
of the group to urge cooking in the schools, and it was she who went 
to Boston to select the teacher for this new and successful scheme. 
She was responsible for the regeneration of the James Forten Manual 
Training School in 1890, and by personal supervision over this school, 
initiated and fostered hand training for elementary pupils in Phila- 
delphia. 

But perhaps she is most widely known for founding the Sub- 
Primary School Society for the purpose of establishing kindergartens 
in Philadelphia, and maintaining it until its work was taken over by 
the Board of Education. In 1881 this Society was evolved from a 
Committee of the Assembly of the Society for Organizing Charity, in 
a manner similar to the growth of our own organization. The two 
committees developed into distinct associations in close co-operation, 
and later the Public Education Association established a Committee 
on Kindergartens which continued its efforts until 1896. 

As a result of the interest originally aroused in the possibilities 
of kindergarten training, City Councils appropriated ^5,000 in 1882 
for the work of the Sub-Primary School Society. Later, the Board of 
Education made an annual appropriation for the maintenance of this 
form of child care, and in 1887, at a mass meeting held especially for 
this purpose, this Board assumed full charge of all public school 
kindergartens. 

Much of the interest in the exhibit held under the auspices of the 
Public Education Association in Horticultural Hall in 1888 centered 
around this new method of training children below school age. 

46 



PLAYGROUNDS 

"In these playgrounds and in their work lies the beginning of the 
SOCIAL redemption OF THE PEOPLE IN LARGE CITIES." — Bernard A. Eckhart 

Although the PubHc Education Association as such can claim but 
small credit for the splendid development of the Playgrounds move- 
ment in Philadelphia, it has been so deeply interested in the work and 
the results have been so significant that it may be of value to chronicle 
them here. 

The agitation for better equipped playgrounds began in Phila- 
delphia in 1894. An organized movement was inaugurated, and one 
playground was opened during that summer. The following year, 
through the efforts of the City Parks Association and the Civic Club, 
the yards of four elementary schools were supplied with play material 
and janitors, and placed under the supervision of trained kinder- 
garteners. 

From this small beginning the movement grew slowly. In 1903, 
as a result of a suggestion made by the Committee on Art, the Pub- 
lic Education Association made a study of the possibility of providing 
play space in a fixed proportion to the seating capacity of each school. 
In 1907 a department of physical education was organized under the 
Board of Education, with a director and ten assistants. This de- 
partment undertook the direction of all physical training and play 
exercises in the elementary and high schools. 

In 1908 the Association formed a Committee on Playgrounds to 
co-operate with other volunteer organizations in urging a wider de- 
velopment of municipal playgrounds; and in May of that year this 
Committee took an active part in the first "Tag Day" of the newly 
formed Playgrounds Association, which raised (nearly) $20,000 for 
the play propaganda and did much toward awakening the community 
to the value of supervised outdoor play. 

As a result of the interest aroused, the Mayor appointed in 1909 
the Public Playgrounds Commission, for the purpose of making a sur- 
vey of the play needs of Philadelphia and a study of the facilities 
offered and the methods used in other cities. A thorough and in- 
teresting report was submitted by this Commission in 1910. The fol- 
lowing year the Board of Recreation was established by legislative 
act; which Board received an appropriation of $100,000 from Coun- 
cils and assumed control of all the playgrounds that had been under 
the care of the Playgrounds Association. 
4 47 



SCHOOL GARDENS AND VACATION SCHOOLS 

"The modern child has lost his most precious birthright — the back 
YARD." — Woods Hutchinson 

The Report of the Secretary for 1904 says: "To Mr. Andrew 
Wright Crawford, of the Art Committee of the Association, belongs 
the credit of the first suggestion of gardens in the schools of Phila- 
delphia." At a meeting of his committee in 1903 they we re first pro- 
posed as a means of reducing the strain of school requirements by a 
change to out-of-door work; and later in the year this committee met 
with that on industrial education to focus their efforts. The City 
Parks Association and the Vacant Lots Association lent effective 
co-operation and the Civic Club started in 1904 two similar gardens. 

In regard to the establishment of the work under the Board of 
Education, the first report of the Supervisor of Recreation Work, under 
the Department of Superintendence, says: "The first gardens, two 
in number, were organized May 12, 1904. They were the direct out- 
come of a petition sent to the Board of Education by the Public Edu- 
cation Association, asking for sufficient money to conduct two model 
gardens. The request was granted by City Councils and the gardens, 
located at Weccacoe Square, Catharine below Fifth Street, and at 
Fifty-sixth and Lansdowne Avenue, were opened," 

Closely related to school gardens were the vacation schools, which 
were opened in 1898 to satisfy the need for the active child to have a 
place to play and work and grow when the class-rooms were closed. 
This movement was started by the Civic Club, and an active com- 
mittee of the Public Education Association co-operated in 1903. In 
1900 these schools became a part of the public school system, and 
they were the first schools of that class to be started in any city under 
the auspices of the Board of Education. In 1907 this work was 
merged with that of the playgrounds, under the Department of 
Physical Training. 

Thus through the efforts of earnest, far-seeing citizens, a complete 
system of outdoor recreation and work has been established. The 
Department of Physical Training of the public schools directs fifty- 
five equipped playgrounds, two athletic fields and fourteen swim- 
ming centers; and the Municipal Board of Recreation controls five 
recreation centers with facilities for outdoor and indoor sports, and 
eight smaller playgrounds; besides the nine school gardens under a 
special director and a series of summer camps still under the manage- 
ment of the Playgrounds Association. 

48 



THE SCHOOL THE COMMUNITY CENTER 

"The social center is not to take the place of any existing institu- 
tion. It is just to be the restoration to its true place in social life 

OF THAT most AMERICAN OF ALL INSTITUTIONS, THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CENTER." 

— Edward J. Ward 

In the fall of 1906 the Probation Officer in charge of the "tender- 
loin," together with Mrs. Katharine Lacy, the indefatigable principal 
of the Agnew School in the heart of that section, presented to this 
Association a plan for lessening the number of Juvenile Court cases 
from that congested district. This plan was to provide decent and 
entertaining evening occupations in the school building in lieu of the 
alluring temptations of the street. 

To this appeal the Public Education Association and the Civic 
Club responded with volunteer workers and contributions of money 
and books; and later the Association supported a class in manual 
training. Thus was the first social center launched. 

The Superintendent of Schools and the Board of Education soon 
realized the social service made possible by this more complete use of 
the school plant, and the following winter other schools were thrown 
open under the sanction of the Board of Education. The spirit of 
this movement was continued by the Home and School League and 
the Parent-Teacher organizations, which have not only fostered social 
centers but have provided meeting places for the parents and teachers, 
so that many schools have become in reality community centers. 

Each year other local associations and private individuals have 
devoted both time and money to help in the promotion of this work, 
and each year the attendance has increased. Various forms of moral 
training, games, gymnastics and sewing are taught in classes, and 
effective service has been rendered. The school houses used are as a 
rule those located in the poorer or more congested sections of the city, 
and the motive has been that of social service to those seemingly most 
in need of moral stimulus and guidance. 

Though splendidly begun by volunteer workers, this community 
use of the school buildings can grow and thrive to its fullest extent 
only when officially recognized and supported as part of the school 
system. So it was a great satisfaction to all interested in the move- 
ment when the Philadelphia social centers were taken over by the 
Board of Recreation in 1912. 

49 



SCHOOL LUNCHES 

"Few of us sufficiently realize the powerful effect upon life of 

ADEQUATE NUTRITIOUS FOOD. FeW OF US EVER THINK OF HOW MUCH IT IS 
responsible for our PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ADVANCEMENT OR WHAT A FORCE 
IT HAS BEEN IN FORWARDING OUR CIVILIZED LIFE."— Robert HuntCr 

Closely allied with the service of the Social Center is that of the 
School Lunch Committee of the affiliated societies of the Home and 
School League and the Public Education Association. 

As early as 1894 a lunch for a penny was served to some of the 
children in the foreign district, through private effort. This impor- 
tant work was reorganized in 1907. A committee of public-spirited 
citizens undertook to put the work on an improved basis, and a super- 
intendent was employed to organize the work in various schools. 
Penny lunches and three-cent "dinners" were provided in various 
elementary schools for the children, many of whom came to school 
with little or no breakfast and with less prospect of a nutritious lunch. 

At present the lunches are served through the efforts of various 
philanthropic associations co-operating with the schools. A com- 
mittee, consisting of representatives from all the organizations in- 
terested in school feeding and from various departments within the 
school system, has supervisory control. 

In 1 91 2 a complete system of school lunches was organized in the 
higher schools under the Board of Public Education. This depart- 
ment includes a Director, fifteen assistant directors, seventy paid 
helpers and one hundred and forty student volunteers each day. 

Each of the fifteen high schools is in charge of one of the assistant 
directors, who are trained dietitians and graduates in domestic sci- 
ence, and all are under the supervision of the director, who does the 
buying for the entire system. A corps of one hundred and forty 
students, varying from day to day, volunteer as waiters, and each 
receives a ten cent luncheon check in return for this service. 

It has been estimated on the basis of the expenses of the School 
Lunch Committee that the average daily expenditure of school chil- 
dren for lunches is sixty cents to every hundred children. In the 
aggregate this amounts to an expenditure of at least $200,000 per 
year in the elementary schools. If the organized movement of the 
School Lunch Committee can make sure that this amount shall be 
spent for wholesome food rather than for the knickknacks of the basket 
peddlers, it will have done a great service. 

50 



HIGH SCHOOLS 

"The future of the state and the country depends to a great extent 

UPON THE EFFICIENCY OF THE SCHOOLS." — Edwin S. StUart 

Philadelphia has always claimed sincere pride in her high schools. 
Until recent years, however, these schools have tended to concentrate 
in huge buildings located in the geographical center of the city. The 
tendency has also been to make the courses academic at the expense 
of more practical training. 

From the year 1899, when the Association began its active cam- 
paign for district high schools which should carry education to the 
people rather than forcing long daily trips in crowded trolleys upon 
our boys and girls, each year has shown some new effort and an in- 
crease of public sentiment. In 1903 seven meetings were held under 
the auspices of the Committee on High Schools, to urge the early 
incorporation of coeducational district high schools into the educa- 
tional policy of the city; and a careful analysis was made of the rela- 
tion of distances traveled to high school attendance in various wards. 
The resulting figures were carefully tabulated and arranged in dia- 
grams, and placed before the Board of Education. 

Later, in conjunction with various civic organizations through- 
out the city, the Association promulgated a definite program for high 
school development : 

I . That Philadelphia needs four additional high schools, brought 
to the people, viz.: 
in the south, 
in the northeast, 
in the northwest, 
in the west; 

II. That for reasons of expense all four should — 
provide for both boys and girls, 
provide for general manual training and commercial 

courses, 
provide a four-year course preparatory to any college; 

III. That the cost should be limited to ^300,000 each. 

In 1906 our committee urged a conference with the Board of Edu- 
cation, and a special committee on district high schools was appointed 

51 



by the Board which adopted resolutions embracing the essential 
features of an adequate plan for district high schools. In 1907 the 
Southern Manual Training High School was opened; and in 1909 the 
William Penn High School for Girls. This latter, however, was 
placed within a block of the older institutions. 

The organization of the Educational Alliance bore splendid fruit 
in the fall of 1910 when popular interest was focused by mass meetings 
and the enthusiastic co-operation of the seventy-five civic, educational 
and patriotic bodies belonging to the Alliance. In that year six dis- 
trict high schools were opened by the Board, though they were as yet 
only "annexes," without separate organization and were placed in 
temporary or rented buildings. 

In 191 1 a report of a special committee of the Association on Dis- 
trict High Schools issued the following statement: 

" For years the Public Education Association has been advocating 
the establishment of professional supervision and management of 
high schools on grounds of the greatest public good and municipal 
economy. A review of the conspicuous acts of the Board shows that 
where it has attempted to perform the function of a professional ex- 
ecutive it has frequently failed either to meet the immediate need or 
to gauge the demand of the future. 

"A few years ago one and a half million dollars were spent on a 
high school building at Broad and Green Streets, when half a million 
of this sum might have been used to begin the construction of less im- 
posing district high school buildings and thus take the school to the 
boy. At that time other cities — notably Chicago, New York and 
Boston — were constructing systems of district high schools that now 
make higher education accessible in every section. 

"The million and a half put into a boys' central high school at 
Broad and Green Streets was followed by the expenditure of nearly a 
million dollars on a girls' high school at Fifteenth and Wallace Streets, 
making another centrally located school, notwithstanding the fact 
that this section of the city no longer had the school population of 
former years. Again the need was for district high schools of less ex- 
pensive architecture. 

"Charts of the residence of high school pupils show that if all the 
high school boys and girls now living in West Philadelphia, German- 
town, Frankford, Kensington and South Philadelphia could be ac- 
commodated immediately in proper local buildings, only two of the 
present central schools would be needed — the Central High School and 
the William Penn High School; and with the simple introduction of 
manual training in the Central High School, the other buildings could 
be closed. 

" The decision of the Board of Public Education to disregard the 

52 



recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools and to use over a 
milHon dollars in building two high schools at Forty-seventh and 
Walnut Streets, thereby expending for district high schools all the 
money at its disposal, is another striking illustration of the lack of 
administrative unity in the system of public education in Philadelphia, 
There seems no good reason why all of the money now available for 
district high schools should be expended in one section. The Super- 
intendent of Schools does not advocate it, nor is it demanded by the 
community concerned, which through its local boards of school di- 
rectors, its clubs, societies and civic organizations, has petitioned for 
a single high school structure. 

" Not until the executive functions of our system of education are 
fully exercised by educational experts who as salaried officials are re- 
quired to view the system of education as a whole, from a central 
point, and with due regard for future needs, shall we be free from the 
well-intentioned but unbusinesslike and costly procedure of arbitrary 
rulings of nine or more different committees of the Board of Educa- 
tion acting separately, making final reports to the full membership 
of the Board in such a way that the mere machinery of the monthly 
meeting compels their acceptance, and thus continuously disjointing 
the whole system by single attention to a small part at a time. No 
better argument in favor of a small board of education of seven re- 
quired to pass on the recommendation of experts could be found than 
in this recent action of the present Board." 

In the fall of 191 1 a careful comparative study was made of rela- 
tive school expenditures in the eight leading cities of America and of 
high school attendance and number and distribution of high schools 
in these cities. By this study it was found that, while Philadelphia 
is the third largest city in the United States, it is sixth in rank in pro- 
portionate support of her schools and ninth in expenditure per pupil; 
and that for every thousand of population Philadelphia has seven 
pupils in the high schools, while Detroit, Louisville and St. Paul have 
eleven, Indianapolis and Boston have twelve, and Minneapolis, Den- 
ver and Kansas City have over eighteen; and that, if Philadelphia 
provided for its children the same high school accommodations as 
those given in Minneapolis, Denver and Kansas City, it would be nec- 
essary to have eight high schools of a thousand pupils each. 

It is notable that New York and Chicago have each twenty-one 
high schools, Boston has fifteen and Cleveland twelve, while Phila- 
delphia has but seven; four of which are in huge centrally located 
buildings. 

It is a satisfaction to record that the Board of Education is begin- 
ning to give serious consideration to this pressing problem, but there 
are still questions to be solved. Will suitable buildings be erected 
in the sections demanding high school accommodations, with courses 
sufficiently broad to meet practical needs, or will there be a repetition 
of some of the evident errors of the past? 

53 



SURVEY OF OTHER VOLUNTEER ORGANI- 
ZATIONS 

"Far seeing is the city that begins and sustains those agencies which 
form good men, rather than founds institutions which reform bad 
MEN." — P. R. McDevitt 

In 1907 a unique publication was issued by this Association. A 
Directory of one hundred and fifty-six organizations interested in ed- 
ucation, most of which had been formed within the previous decade, 
had been compiled by the Secretary in 1905 for the Commissioner 
of Education, with expectation of its being issued in his report; but 
the expense proving too great it was published by the Public Educa- 
tion Association from a special fund. 

This handbook contained in scheduled form the record of service 
of fifty-seven associations, seventy-three committees of clubs and 
twenty-six committees of federations of clubs, all voluntarily working 
for the cause of public education. A list of the chief interests of each 
of the associations was given, with an enumeration of what had been 
actually accomplished for the schools. The special usefulness of the 
study lay in its suggestions of opportunities for volunteer aid to pub- 
lic school betterment, in suggestions of sources to which workers might 
look for help, and in demonstrating the wide scope of the efforts of 
volunteer educational associations. 

Miss Dora Keen, the capable secretary of the Association at that 
time, made this a full and accurate record of such organizations up to 
date, and though issued but the one year, it was distributed widely 
and used as a model for other similar compilations in different cities. 
The Bureau of Municipal Research of New York planned and printed 
a list of societies co-operating with the public schools of New York, 
along similar lines; and it was also used in the compilation of Miss 
Elsa Denison's book on " Helping School Children. " This is a widely 
commended work on co-operation " by a volunteer," telling " how other 
volunteers in all parts of the United States are learning about and co- 
operating with their public schools." 

In 19 II the Public Education Association compiled a directory of 
Philadelphia institutions which care for children, to be used as a 
source of information in placing public school children who are in need 
of care or advice. This was planned primarily for the use of the 
Bureau of Compulsory Education, but it is also used by other chil- 
dren's agencies. 

The fact that these studies supplied information that was found 
to be really useful by organizations in other states, leads to the be- 

54 



lief that there should be a system of exchange among all such volun- 
teer groups as the Public Education Association, that new and help- 
ful ideas might be spread. Especially since America has no strictly 
national public school system, a clearing house for school co-operation 
in each city and state would be made of great service. These state 
organizations could be closely related to the National Bureau of Edu- 
cation, and would result in securing the greatest unity of effort and 
standards without a dead uniformity of practice. 

Commissioner P. P. Claxton has said: "The United States Bureau 
of Education should be the servant of all states to work out any prob- 
lem and make the results available for all." Miss Denison (in 
"Helping School Children") has made a suggestion for the organizing 
of the mighty force of volunteer workers along parallel lines, showing 
this in a chart that must appeal to all who have been watching the 
efforts for co-operation. 



United States 
Bureau of Education 

State Superintendents 

I 
City Superintendents 



Principals and teachers 



National Bureau of 

School Co-operation 

— State organizers 

— Central City organizations 
(Public Education Associations) 



Local and district agencies of 

men and women 
(Committees of associations) 



20,000,000 school children 



INCORPORATION 

On July 6, 1910, the Public Education Association assumed per- 
manent form by incorporation under the laws of the State, through the 
advice of Howard Cooper Johnson, Esquire, and William G. Foulke, 
Esquire, who generously gave their aid during their service on the 
Board of Directors. 

This was done for the purpose of inviting from its guarantors and 
friends such a full investigation of its aims and activities as might re- 
sult in liberal subscriptions and bequests. 

The names of the signatories of the articles of incorporation give a 
guarantee of the substantial nature of its service. 



Wm. W. Justice 
George Henderson 
Maurice Fels 
Joseph Swain 
Dora Keen 
W. Marriott Canby 
Leslie W. Miller 
Mary V. Grice 



Margaret Tustin O'Harra 



SIGNATORIES 
George E. Roth 
William H. Mearns 
A. Duncan Yocum 
M. G. Brumbaugh 
W. W. Keen 
Wm. G. Foulke 
J. G. Rosengarten 
John Story Jenks 



Ira Jewell Williams 
Wm. Burnham 
Cheesman A. Herrick 
M. Carey Thomas 
Herbert L. Clark 
James S. Hiatt 
E. Pusey Passmore 
Samuel S. Fels 



Howard Cooper Johnson 



55 



FINANCIAL STATEMENT 

"The best asset of the commonwealth is always its growing boys and 
GIRLS." — Nathan C. Schaeffer 



A glance at the Treasurer's statement in each annual report shows 
the growth from a modest beginning, which is most interesting to the 
student of social dynamics. 

The first Treasurer's report, dated January 13, 1883, shows a sub- 
scription fund from twelve members of $48.00, and an expense item 
of "sundry payments," $4.50, leaving cash in treasury, $43.50. Be- 
fore 1898 there was but one item of "wages for clerk," and until 1907 
there was no rent of office charged. 

In the first fifteen years of the Society's life, the total receipts, 
amounting to $8,653.52, included $7,554.30 as contributions to special 
objects, such as the industrial exhibit financed by the Association, 
cooking classes in the Normal School, the establishment of a Chair 
of Pedagogy in the University of Pennsylvania, summer courses in 
pedagogy in the University, the census of school children, and the 
decoration of the Girls' Normal School. During this period the work 
was done through public meetings and by direct contributions to 
some special object or some other organization. 

More recently the work has grown so that a staff secretary and re- 
search agents have been secured, and the Association has offered a 
more direct service which has required increased financial support. 
The second fifteen years showed $37,476.00 in the receipt columns, 
and although the running expenses had grown to $27,025.75, there 
was still $10,777.48 for special objects, including $1,556 for the school 
for backward children and $5,485.28 for scholarships. 

The membership as listed in the report for 1883 numbered just 
fifty, while the report for 191 2 tells of over a thousand. 





Receipts 


Expenditures 


Period 


Office 


Special 
Objects 


Total 


First 15 years — 1881— 1895 


$8,653.52 
37,476.00 


$706.19 
27,025.75 


$7,554-30 
10,777.48 


$8,260.49 


Second 15 years — 1896-191 1 


37,803.23 



56 



GROWTH OF THE SCHOOLS IN THIRTY 
YEARS 

"The nation which has the best schools must take the lead. If not 
today, then tomorrow." 

The following figures, taken respectively from the Reports of 1881 
and 1911 of the Board of Education, show the growth of the public 
schools in Philadelphia during the last generation. The lines show 
graphically the comparative numbers. The change from numerous 
small buildings without expert supervision to modern school plants 
of thirty divisions and over is significant. It is also a notable fact 
that the cost per pupil is more than doubled in a generation. 



No. of pupils: 

In elementary schools. . 188 
191 

in high schools 188 

191 

No. of buildings 188 

191 

No. of teachers 188 

191 

Teachers' salaries 188 

191 

Cost per pupil 188 

191 

Total cost, day and night 

schools 188 

191 



100,372 
1 70,699 

1.813 

> 1.343 

461 

325 

2, II 3 
4,929 

^1,033,628.39 
4»540,75545 

$14.01 
30.92 



M ,43 '.235.03 
8,558,591.42 



In 1 88 1 there was no Department of Compulsory Education nor of 
Medical Inspection; no provision for backward children nor special 
care for defective children; no playgrounds under supervision; no 
school gardens; no social centers. 

And yet in many of the modern forms of education Philadelphia 
has been a leader. In the matter of social centers successfully main- 
tained in school buildings, Philadelphia preceded Boston. New York 
did not inaugurate her departments of kindergartens, sewing, or 
manual training, nor trade schools and classes for defective children 
until after Philadelphia had taken the lead. In many of these 
fields of educational advancement volunteer agencies had most 
potent influence and will continue to be the true democratic element. 

57 



APPENDIX 

PRESIDENT ELIOT ON THE ADMINISTRATION 
OF CITY SCHOOLS 

An inspiring and lucid address given by President Charles W. 
Eliot of Harvard University on January i6, 1904, set so wise and far- 
seeing a standard of educational administration that the strides of 
progress during recent years have advanced us far along the way he 
pointed. But the goal has not been reached; and until the whole of 
this plan has been incorporated as a working basis in the public 
schools of our city, the Association will not rest satisfied. 

The following outline shows in condensed form the principles 
stated by Dr. Eliot: 

System Recommended by Ex-President Eliot 

I. LEGISLATIVE ADMINISTRATION 
A Board. 

Seven members. 

Elected one or two at a time. 

For seven years. Only two consecutive terms. 

No compensation. 

To determine general policy, appoint executive officers, and direct expenditures. 

II. EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 
Four Expert Agents — All appointed by the Board: at first on probation, then for 

long terms. 

1. A Superintendent of Instruction 

To have entire control of the teaching staff. 

To supervise the course of study and adoption 
of new methods. 

To consult with teachers. 
Inspectors, to supervise teachers. 
Examiners, to examine teachers. 

2. A Superintendent of Buildings. 

To be an architect or engineer. 
Controlling new constructions. 
Controlling repairs. 

3. A Superintendent of Supplies. 

To purchase all supplies. 
To control care of buildings. 
To supervise janitors. 

4. A Superintendent of Finance and Accounting. 

To have charge of all income and expenditure. 

III. FINANCE 
Independent Taxation. 

Object: — To enable the board to predict its income. 

Method: — A city tax, fixed at a definite maximum number of mills per dollar of 

assessed valuation. 
The board to levy, collect, and expend, through a Financial Agent, such school 
taxes as are authorized by statute law, and to administer all endowments. 

59 



All three to co-operate 
with the head of the 
city Medical Inspection 
of Schools. 



SUMMARY OF THE SCHOOL CODE OF 1911, AS 

IT PERTAINS TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS OF 

THE FIRST CLASS, PHILADELPHIA AND 

PITTSBURGH 

FINANCE 

1. Fiscal Year 

(a) Begins January first. 

(b) Taxes levied "on or after the second Monday of November and before 
the first Monday of December following." 

2. Tax Levy 

(a) "Shall not be less than five or more than six mills on the dollar of the 
total assessment of all property assessed and certified for taxation." (Section 
524.) 

(b) All unpaid school taxes shall be liens on real property and shall be 
collected in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth. 

3. Loans 

(a) "The total indebtedness incurred or created by any school district 
of the first class including any indebtedness assumed by it at the time of the 
approval of this Act shall not exceed two (2) per centum upon the total assessed 
valuation of the taxable property in such school district." (Section 535.) 

(b) Indebtedness to be reduced by bonds issued for any period of time 
not to exceed thirty years. 

(c) Temporary loans not to exceed two tenths of one (i) per centum may 
be negotiated on two-thirds vote of Board of Education. 

4. School Controller, Treasurer, and Receiver of Taxes 

The Controller, the Treasurer, and the Receiver of Taxes of the munic- 
ipality will be respectively the same officers of the school district. 



BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 

1 . Number of Members 

Fifteen; five selected each year. 

2. Length of Term 

Six years beginning second Monday of November. 

3. Time of Selection 

October. 

4. Manner of Selection 

Appointed by the Judges of the Courts of Common Pleas. 

5. Powers 

(a) Of taxation and borrowing. 

(b) Of preparing a budget of estimated expenditures of the school district on 
or before the second Monday of November. 

60 



(c) Of legislative control of the policies of school administration: "The 
duties of the board of public education in districts of the first class in addition 
to the duties prescribed in this Act shall be to define the general policies of the 
school system and to legislate upon all matters pertaining thereto, to determine 
and direct all expenditures for the maintenance and improvement of the school 
system, to appoint the officers herein prescribed and define their duties, to 
appoint teachers and in general to legislate upon all matters concerning the 
conduct of the schools subject to the provisions of this Act." (Section 2222.) 



SECTIONAL SCHOOL DIRECTORS 

1. New Name 

School Visitors. 

2. Number 

Seven for each Ward. 

3. Length of Term 

Four years, beginning first Monday of January. 

4. Manner of Selection 

Elected at each municipal election, four and three respectively at a time. 

5. Secretary's Salary 

The Secretary "may receive from the funds of the school district an annual 
salary not exceeding twenty-five dollars ($25) as the Board of Public Education 
of the school district may determine." (Section 2207.) 

6. Powers 

(a) They shall visit all the public elementary schools of their respective 
wards at least once every three months. 

(b) They shall report to the Board of Public Education the needs of the 
ward district "in regard to the number, kind, equipment and efficiency of the 
schools and school buildings." (Section 2208.) 

(c) They may, on vote of a majority of all the members, "elect suitable 
persons for janitors for all grammar and elementary schools in such ward dis- 
trict subject to the rules of the Board of Education." (Section 2232.) 



SUPERINTENDENCE 

1 . Number of Department Heads 

Three: 

(a) Superintendent of Schools. 

(b) Superintendent of Buildings (may be appointed). 

(c) Superintendent of Supplies (may be appointed). 

2. Manner of Selection 

Appointed by Board of Education. 

3. Term 

One year, beginning the first Monday in January: "the superintendent 
of schools may be elected for a term of four years." (Section 2223.) 

4. Powers 

Executive supervision of their respective departments subject to the rules 
and regulations ot the Board of Public Education. 

5. Superintendent of Schools 

(a) He shall have such associates and assistants as the Board shall de- 
termine. 

61 



(b) He shall receive for criticism "all plans for new school construction, 
addition or repairs" from the superintendent of buildings. (Section 2231.) 

QUALIFICATIONS OF TEACHERS 

1 . Manner of Selection 

Teachers and principals of elementary schools are required to be appointed 
from eligible lists prepared by a Board of Examiners. 

2. Board of Examiners 

May be constituted by the Board of Public Education to consist of such 
number and to have such power as the rules of the Board direct; the superin- 
tendent of schools to be chairman and to nominate the members who shall 
serve subject to the approval of the Board of Education. 

3. Classes Exempted from the Eligibility Clause 

Superintendent 

Associate and Assistant Superintendents. 

Directors of Special Branches. 

Principals of Higher Schools. 

Teachers in Higher Schools. 

Promotions. 

Transfers. 

" Except as superintendent of schools, associate superintendent, assistant 
district superintendent, director of a special branch, or as principal of or 
teacher in a high school or normal school, or in case of promotion or transfer 
from any position to another or higher position, no person shall be appointed 
to any educational position in the public school in school districts of the first 
class whose name does not appear among the three highest names upon the 
proper eligible list. Provided that in any district of the first class or in one 
that is made a district of the first class by this act, no person holding a position 
at the time of the passage of this act shall be displaced by the above provision." 
(Section 2229.) 

MEDICAL INSPECTION 

1 . Manner of Appointment of Inspectors 

By Department of Public Health, as heretofore. 

2. Salaries 

Paid by the Board of Education. 

3. Duties 

"The medical inspectors shall at least once each year inspect and care- 
fully test and examine all pupils in the public schools of their districts, giving 
special attention to defective sight, hearing, or other disabilities and defects 
specified by the Commissioner of Health in his directions for the medical 
examinations of schools. Each medical inspector shall make to the teacher 
or if the board of school directors so directs to the principal or district super- 
intendent of schools a written report concerning all pupils found to need 
medical or surgical attention, and giving careful directions concerning the care 
of each pupil who needs special care while in school. The teacher or the 
principal or district superintendent shall keep such report until the end of the 
school year, shall carry out as carefully as possible said directions concerning 
the special care of pupils while in school and shall promptly send a copy of the 
medical inspector's report upon each child to the parents or guardian thereof." 



62 



OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION 

From the unwearied efforts of the officers throughout these thirty 
years the Association has gained much of the inspiration that helped 
in its growing work. It seems fitting that these should be mentioned 
here, and the repeated names will show that successive years of faith- 
ful work were cheerfully given by many of them. 



Chairman 

1882 James S. Whitney. 

1883 James S. Whitney . 

1884 James S. Whitney . 

1885 James S. Whitney 



to James S. Whitney. 
1890 
1891 

to 
1892 

1893 Edmund J. James. 

1894 Edmund J. James. 

1895 Edmund J. James. 

1896 Philip C. Garrett . 

1897 Philip C. Garrett . 



1882-1897 
Secretary 
Miss Charlotte Pendleton. 
Miss Charlotte Pendleton. 
.Cor. Miss Charlotte Pendleton. 
Rec. William W. Justice. 
.Cor. Miss Charlotte Pendleton. 
Rec. William W. Justice. 

.Cor. Miss Charlotte Pendleton. 
Rec. William W. Wiltbank. 

Cor. Miss Charlotte Pendleton. 
Rec. William W. Wiltbank. 

.Cor. Miss Charlotte Pendleton. 
Rec. William W. Wiltbank. 
William W. Wiltbank. 
William W. Wiltbank. 
William W. Wiltbank. 
Miss Caroline E. Paxson. 



Treasurer 
Dal ton Dorr 
Dalton Dorr 
Mrs. J. Dundas Lippincott 

Mrs. J. Dundas Lippincott 



Mrs. J. Dundas Lippincott 
Mrs. J. Dundas Lippincott 

Mrs. J. Dundas Lippincott 

Mrs. J. Dundas Lippincott 
Miss Susan W. Janney 
Miss Susan W. Janney 
Miss Susan W. Janney 









1898-1912 








President 




Secretary 




Treasurer 


1898 


Philip C. Garrett 


. . Cor. 


Clinton Rogers Woodruff. 


Miss Susan W. Janney 






Rec. 


Miss Caroline E. 


Paxson. 




1899 


Philip C. Garrett . 


. . .Cor. 


Clinton Rogers Woodruff. 


Miss Susan W. Janney 






Rec. 


Miss Caroline E. 


Paxson. 




1900 


Philip C. Garrett 


. . . Cor. 


Miss Dora Keen. 




Miss Susan W. Janney 






Rec. 


Miss Mary E. Converse. 




I90! 


Philip C. Garrett . 


...Cor. 


Miss Dora Keen. 




Jonathan M. Steere 






Rec. 


Miss Mary E. Converse. 




1902 


Philip C. Garrett 


. . .Cor. 
Rec. 


Miss Dora Keen. 
Cyrus D. Foss. 




Jonathan M. Steere 


1903 


Philip C. Garrett. 




Miss Dora Keen. 




George Henderson 


1904 


S. Davis Page. . . . 




Miss Dora Keen. 




W. Marriott Canby 


1905 

1906 


Joseph Swain .... 




Miss Dora Keen. 




W. Marriott Canby 
E. Pusey Passmore 


Joseph Swain .... 




Miss Dora Keen. 




1907 


Joseph Swain .... 




Paul S. Atkins. 




E. Pusey Passmore 


1908 


W. W. Justice, H 
George Henderson, 


onorary 
Acting 


James S. Hiatt. 




E. Pusey Passmore 


1909 


W. W. Justice, Honorary 


George E. Roth. 




E. Pusey Passmore 




George Henderson, 


Acting 








1910 


W. W. Justice, Honorary 


George E. Roth. 




E. Pusey Passmore 




George Henderson, 


Acting 








I9II 


Otto T. Mallery . . 




James S. Hiatt. 




E. Pusey Passmore 


I9I2 


Otto T. Mallery . 
5 




James S. Hiatt. 
63 




E. Pusey Passmore 



PUBLIC MEETINGS 

Mass meetings are a means of presenting educational ideals to the 
general public, and in this way the Association has always stood as a 
clearing house between the school system and the parent-citizens; 
therefore it has aimed to have its meetings timely and instructive. 

As early as 1884 the report tells of four lectures by Dr. MacAlister, 
Dr. G. Stanley Hall, Professor John Ordway, and Professor Edmund 
J. James. To give the complete list of prominent men and women 
who have appeared under the auspices of the Association would show 
the extent of its influence. 

Among the distinguished speakers who have discussed educational 
problems on its platform have been: 

1884 Dr. G. Stanley Hall, Professor John Ordway, and Professor E. J. James. 

1885 Miss Maria Parloa, on ' 'Principles of Household Economy and Related Studies." 
Dr. M. Putnam Jacobi, on "Experiments in Primary Education." 

1898 Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, on "The Citizen's Relation to the Public Schools." 

1899 Dr. E. M. Hartell, formerly Director of Physical Training in Boston, on "Hy- 

giene and Physical Training." 
Dr. A. P. Marble, Assistant Superintendent of Schools of New York City, on 
"Vacation Schools." 

1901 Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, on " Improvement of the Teaching Force." 

1902 His Excellency, Wu Ting Fang, Chinese Minister to the United States, on 

"Impressions of the Educational System of the United States." 
Mr. James B. Reynolds, Secretary to Mayor Low, on "Vacation Schools." 
Dr. Felix Adier, on "The Moral End of Education." 

1903 Dr. Andrew S. Draper, President of the University of Illinois, on "Vital Points 

Touching the Public Schools of a Large City." 
Dr. W. H. P. Faunce, President of Brown University, on "The Training of 

Women as Teachers." 
Dr. Ernst J. Lederle, Commissioner of Health of New York City, on "Medical 

Inspection of Schools." 
Miss Lina L. Rogers, Supervising School Nurse of New York City, on "Medical 

Inspection of Schools." 

1904 President Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard University, on "A Good Urban School 

Organization." 

64 



1904 Mr. Herbert D. Hemenway, Director of the Hartford School of Horticulture, 
on "School Gardens." 

Mrs. Henry Parsons, Director of the Children's School Farm, New York City, 
on "School Gardens." 

1906 Superintendent F. Louis Soldan, of St. Louis, Mo., on "The Board, the Super- 

intendent and the Teacher." 
Dr. Joseph S. Taylor, of New York, on the "Sectional School Boards— The 

Character and Importance of their Work." 
Mr. James P. Haney, Superintendent of Manual Training, New York, on "The 

Development of Manual Training in a City System." 
Dr. Walter E. Fernald, Superintendent, Massachusetts Institution for Feeble- 

Minded, on " Public School Classes for Backward Children." 

1907 Mr. George I. Aldrich, Superintendent, Brookline, Mass., Mr. George E. Meyers, 

Principal, McKinley Manual Training School, Washington, D. C, Mr. W. B. 
Gunnison, Principal, Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn, N. Y., on "The 
Best Type of District High School, with Special Reference to Co-education." 

1908 Professor Lorenzo Dow Harvey, Ph.D., Superintendent of the Stout Training 

Schools at Menominee, Wis., on "Industrial Education." 
Mr. Leonard P. Ayres, General Superintendent of Schools of Porto Rico, on 
" Do Twenty-five Per Cent of all Public School Children fail to get an Educa- 
tion?" 

1910 Dr. George Drayton Strayer, Director of Educational Administration, Columbia 
University, and Mr. William McAndrew, Principal of the Washington Irving 
High School, New York, on " Public Education in a Democracy." 

Members of the School Code Commission, at dinner given in their honor. 

Dr. Georg Kerschensteiner of Munich, on " Industrial Education," at reception 
given jointly with Pennsylvania Branch of National Society for Promotion 
of Industrial Education, and other societies. 

19 12 Mr. William A. Wirt, Superintendent of Schools of Gary, Ind., on "The Com- 
plete Use of the School Plant." 



65 



LIST OF REPORTS, PAPERS AND ADDRESSES 

RELATIVE TO THE WORK OF THE PUBLIC 

EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 

Annual Reports, 1881-1912 

Addresses at Joint Meeting of Civic Club, Dept. of Education, 

and Public Education Association, March 3, 1894 Herbert Welsh 

Charlotte Pendleton 

History of Public Education in Philadelphia, 1896 C. S. Bernheimer 

History of the Public Education Association of Philadelphia, 

1896 Lewis R. Harley 

Compulsory Education, 1898 Dora Keen 

Extension of the Course of the Central High School, 1898. . . W. W. Wiltbank and 

Press Editors 

Medical Inspection of Schools, 1898 Dora Keen 

Leaflet History and Outline, 1898 Clinton Rogers Woodruff 

Truants and Incorrigibles, 1898 Dora Keen 

Backward Children in Public Schools, 1899 Dora Keen 

Backward Children and Education, 1900 Dora Keen 

Eight Charts. Philadelphia School for Backward Children 
and Comparative Statistics of Similar Schools in the 

United States, 1900 Dora Keen 

Organization and Financial Powers of the Department of 
Education, with special reference to the needs of Phila- 
delphia, 1900 James T. Young and 

Leo S. Rowe 

School Laws pertaining to Philadelphia, 1902 George Henderson 

Vital Points Touching the Public Schools of a Large City, 

1903 Andrew S. Draper 

Plea for District High Schools, 1903 Dora Keen 

A Good Urban School Organization, 1904 Charles W. Eliot 

Seventh Conference of Education Associations, 1904 Dora Keen 

Conference of Eastern Education Associations, Bulletin No. 
1 1, 1904 

School Gardens in Great Cities, 1904 Helen C. Bennett 

Philadelphia School Gardens, 1904 A. W. Crawford and 

others 
Educational Organization and Progress in Seventeen Ameri- 
can Cities, 1905. A Symposium 

School Reforms in Philadelphia, 1905 The Outlook 

66 



Story of a School Nurse, 1905 Anna M. Stanley and 

Dora Keen 

The Board, the Superintendent, and the Teacher, 1906 F. Louis Soldan 

Suggestions in Sectional School Boards, 1906. Dora Keen 

The Sectional School Boards, 1906 David Stout 

The Importance of the Early Discovery and Treatment of 

Defectives in Special Public School Classes, 1906 Walter E. Fernald 

Directory of 156 Education Associations and Committees, 

1 907 Dora Keen 

Manual Training in Elementary Schools, 1907 Industrial Education 

Committee, Leslie W. 
Miller, Chairman 

Causes of Retardation in Public School Classes, 1908 Leonard P. Ayres 

A Comparison of the Present School System with the System 

which the New School Code would Establish, 1909. . . .George M. Philips 
The Small Board of Education versus the Large Board, 1909 . . Scott Nearing 
Notes on the Educational Problem in Philadelphia, 1909. . .James S. Hiatt 

The Philadelphia High School Problem, 1909 George E. Roth 

A Parallel Comparison of the Proposed System with the 

Present System of Public Education in Pennsylvania, 

1910 George E. Roth 

A Review of School Expenditures, 1910 George Henderson 

Study of the By-Laws and Rules of the Board of Education, 

191 1 James S. Hiatt 

Recent Progress in School Administration in Philadelphia, 

1912 James S. Hiatt 

Newer Ideals in Education — The Complete Use of the School 

Plant, 1912 William A. Wirt 

An Introduction to Vocational Guidance, 1912 James S. Hiatt 

The Child, the School and the Job, 1912 James S. Hiatt 

The German System of Industrial Schooling, 1913 Ralph C. Busser 

The Public Schools of Philadelphia, 19 13 James S. Hiatt 



67 



INDEX 



Appeal of School Principals, for rcor- 
gaiii/;uioii ol school system, 2i. 

Armstrong Association, co-operation, 
43- 

Art Committee, 45. 

Baby Saving Show, co-operation, 36. 

Backward Children, tiist class, 37. 

Bemheimer, Charles, History of Edu- 
cation ill riiiiatlcl()hia, 14. 

Board of Education, see Education, 
Board of Public. 

Brumbaugh, Dr. Martin G., elected 
Su|HMintoiulciit, :?4. 

Budget of School Expenses, 26. 

Bureau of Mxmicipal Research, New 
York, 54. 

Census of School Children, 31. 
Census of Subnonnal, Truant and 

Incorrigible, 38. 
Child Labor, Law, 33; Coininittee, 41. 
Children's Aid Society, co-operation, 

34- 

City Parks Association, co-operation, 48. 

Civic Club, co-(.>iicratioii in report on 
Compulsory Kducation, 31; in 
establisimuMit of Special Class for 
Backward Cliildren, 37; in in- 
dustrial exhibit, 41; School Gar- 
dens, 48; Vacation Schools, 48; 
Social Centers, 40. 

Commercial High School for Girls, 
establislied 1808, 45. 

Commission, to prepare Act changing 
scluH>l law, 2T,; to codify School 
Laws, 25. 

Committees, of Public Education Asso- 
ciation, 30. 

Compulsory Education, see Education, 
Compulsory. 

Conference with Board of Education, 
Ci>n\niittee, 30. 

Consumers League, co-operation, 41. 

Cooking, jilaced in curriculum, 44. 

Co-operation, tlnouiili committees, 30. 

Crippled Children, establishment of 
class for, 36. 

Date Schedule, 5. 

Denison, Elsa, "Helping School Chil- 
dren," 54, 55. 



Directory, of educational organizations, 
54; of children's institutions, 54. 

Education, Board of Public, reduced 
from 42 to 21, 23; from 21 to 15, 
II. 

Education, Compulsory, first consid- 
eretl by a committee, 13; Report, 
14; work of committee, 31; Act of 
1897, 31; rinladelphia Depart- 
ment organized, 31; report pub- 
lished, 31; L^epartment reorgan- 
ized, 32; co-operation with Public 
Education Association, 32. 

Education, Industrial, first considered 
by a committee, 13; report, 14; 
committee work, 40; exhibit in 
rhiladelphia and in Paris, 1888, 
40; exhibit in Philadelphia, 1906, 
42. 

Educational Alliance, 16, 52. 

Eligible Lists, for teachers, 28. 

Eliot, Charles W., on "A Good LIrban 
School Organization," 20; sum- 
mary, 59. 

Financial Statement, of Public Educa- 
tion Association, 56. 

Flexner, Dr. Abraham, on voluntary 
associations, 12. 

Forten, James, Scliool reorganized with 
niaiuial training, 41, 46. 

Girls' High and Normal Schools, sepa- 
rated 1803, 44. 
Growth of the Schools in Thirty Years, 

57- 

Hallowell, Anna, instigated opening 
of kiiuiergartens, etc., 46. 

Harley, Lewis R., History of Public 
Eiliication Association, 18. 

High Schools, see Schools, High. 

Home and School Association, co- 
operation for Social Centers, 49; 
for School Lunches, 50. 

Household Economy, committee work, 
44. 

Incorporation, of Public Education 
Association, 55. 



68 



Industrial Training, sec Education, In- 
dustrial. 
Introduction, 12. 

Kindergartens, 46. 

MacAlister, Superintendent James, 

15. 19- 

Manual Training, defined, 39; High 
Schools opened, 40; James For- 
ten School reorganized, 41, 46; in- 
troduced in six elementary schools, 
43; i)lanned for girls, 44. 

Massachusetts Commission on In- 
dustrial and Technical Education, 
42. 

Medical Inspection, 35. 

New Century Club, co-operation, 42. 

Officers of the Public Education Asso- 
ciation, 63. 

Pendleton, Charlotte, first secretary, 3, 

13. 44- 
Philadelphia Teachers Association, 

Document No. 3, 38. 
Playgrounds, 47. 
Principals, Supervising, 19. 
Public Education Association, organ- 

izx'd, 13; object, 13; Committees, 

30; officers, 63. 
Public Meetings of Association, 64. 
Publications of Association, 66. 

Recreation, Board of, conducting re- 
creation centers, 47, 48; taking 
over social centers, 49. 

Reorganization of School System, 18. 

Scholarships, granted by Public Edu- 
cation Association, 33. 

School Code of 191 1, advances under 
Code recorded, 17; Commission 
appointed, 25; passed, 29; sum- 
mary, 60. 

School of Industrial Art, opened, 40. 

School the Community Center, 49. 

School Gardens, 48. 

School Lunches, 50. 



Schools, High, 51; Manual Training 
High Schools opened, 14, 40, 52; 
separation of Girls' High and 
Normal Schools, 44; William 
Penn High School opened, 45; 
committee work, 51; campaign 
for district high schools, 51; in 
other cities, 53. 

Schools, Special, first, 37; class for 
backward children, merged into 
special, 37. 

Schools, Trade, opened, 41. 

Schools, Vacation, 48. 

Sewing, placed in curriculum, 14, 44. 

Social Centers, first established in 
Pliila(l(li)hia, 49. 

Society for Organizing Charity, founded, 
13; investigation of scholarship 
cases, 33; acceptance of scholar- 
ship trust, 34; Sub-Primary 
School Society evoJved from com- 
mittee, 46. 

Society for Promotion of Public 
Economy, 13. 

Special Schools, see Schools, Special. 

State Board of Education, 17, 27; 
established under Code of 1911, II. 

Sub-Primary School Society, founded, 
46. 

Superintendence, Department of, 
created, 14, 15, 19. 

Superintendent of Schools, first, Dr. 
MacAlister, 15, 19; Dr. Brum- 
baugh, 24. 

Survey of Other Volunteer Organiza- 
tions, 54. 

Trade Schools, see Schools, Trade. 

Vacant Lots Association, co-operation, 
48. 

Vacation Schools, see Schools, Vaca- 
tion. 

Visiting Nurses, 36. 

Vocational Guidance, plan for, 43. 

Vocational Training, study of, 41, 42, 
43; see also Education, Indus- 
trial. 

Volunteer Organizations, truly dem- 
ocratic, 12; helpful, 55; see 
also Survey of Other Volunteer 
Organizations. 



69 



THE OFFICERS OF THE PUBLIC EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION, 1913-1914 

President 
MR, OTTO T. MALLERY 

yice-Presidents 
DR. JOSEPH SWAIN MISS DCiRA KEEN MRS. EDWIN C. GRICE 

Secretary Treasurer 

MR. JAMES S. HIATT MR. SAMUEL PRICE WETHERILL. JR. 

Directors 
MR, FRANCIS B. BIDDLE 

MRS. RUDOLPH BLANKENBURG 

MR. SAMUEL B. BOWEN 

MR. FRANKLIN N. BREWER 

MR. W. MARRIOTT CANBY 

MR. GEORGE P. DARROW 

MR. JOHN T. EMLEN 

MR. MAURICE PELS 

MR. GEORGE HENDERSON 

MR. MALCOLM S. HUEY 
MR. GEORGE C. KRUSEN 

DR. ARTHUR J. ROWLAND 

PRESIDENT M. CAREY THOMAS 

MRS. JAMES D. WINSOR. JR. 

DR. A. DUNCAN YOCUM 



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